


Down Eternity Street

by Fragoline



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-03-04 00:13:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13352448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fragoline/pseuds/Fragoline
Summary: Of course, Ester said, as Finn eyed them behind cool blue eyes, when I suggested a family dinner, I did mean for all of my children to attend.Klaus stared at her, making not the slightest move to answer. Elijah put down his expensive silver fishknife and dabbed his mouth with the monogrammed napkin:Rebekah is unavailable, I'm afraid, he said mildly.Their mother accepted this with an incline of her head, frowning nonetheless:But Kol is not, I'm sure. Where is your brother?Klaus snorted, his blue eyes flashing with genuine hatred:You do remember that Kol was killed? Or is your age catching up to you? If you wanted him there, maybe you should have brought him back along with Bloody Boring over there.Ester looked from Klaus to Elijah carefully, then at Finn whose eyebrows had gone up, disappearing beneath his ridiculous, foppish blond hair.You do not know? she asked, sounding genuinely startled for the first time since Klaus had seen her. Kol was not on the Other Side when I looked for him. He came back long before I was ever consecrated.





	1. Mardi Gras at Heaven's Gate

 

 

_Yeah I've seen people laughing all the way down to the cemeteries just to send another soul off on its way_

_Yeah I've seen them dance right up to the edge of it_

_But this time they're gonna dance back from the grave_

 

  

 

New Orleans, 1821

 

"Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a nice. Ripe. Plum." As he breathed the last word, the vampire appeared in front of the woman, as thought he had teleported from the entrance of the room, so fast she could not even see a blur. "More offerings from my brother?" he asked the attendant vampires. "Dessert, perhaps?"

They exchanged a nervous look.

"She said you'd receive her, senor," one of them answered hesitantly. He was a very handsome boy, Spanish creole and new.

Kol tilted his head to the side, looking at the woman from head to toe, mouth watering. A finest exemple of a quadroon he'd never seen.

"Did she, now?"

Iris drew herself up:

"Please," she said, swallowing hard, "I have come to seek your help." 

"My help?" he smiled, coming even closer. He didn't bother with speed, this time, stepping so near she could feel the borrowed heat from his skin, tucking her hair behind her ear and smoothing it over the shoulder, baring her slender neck and inhaling softly at the crook. Human skin, honeysuckle, and callas and the scent of blood, overwhelming. He was still  _starving_. She didn't move. The scent of her fear was intoxicating. Smart girl. She didn't close her eyes, either, watching him unblinkingly. He was as handsome as the stories said. As dark and wild. "Do I seem the helpful sort to you?"

She took a shallow breath:

_"J'espère, Monsieur. Il n'y a personne d'autre."_  

He paused. He'd been circling her, now he came back to stand in front of her, with that same speed, which baffled even her magic, so ancient he was. The accent wasn't exactly right, but familiar enough to make him take a step and look at her carefully.

" _Non_?" he asked, faint interest sparking. "Et que voulez-vous donc, ma chère, que nul autre ne peut vous donner?"

"My daughter. She took my daughter. Took her up to the attic. No one, Monsieur, no one ever comes back. My Maman spoke of you,  _blan moun_ goin' around with the  _houngans_. Doing Gwo Majik."

He laughed, unhinged and careless yet a tiny bit flattered. His body had relaxed in an undefinable way. No longer about to pounce, though he still watched her in a way which reminded her very much of the kitchen cat, playing with something it had caught, despite having no apparent intention to eat it. She did not relax in answer, though her throat clogged with something thick and painful which might have been either hope or despair.

"And that makes you think I would help you," his voice was rich and amused. "Why should I?"

"Because no one else will." She looked at him. Straight in the eyes. Hers were hazel and flecked with gold. Hopeful or desperate this was her one shot. "Because no one else can."

 

_Well a thousand souls crossed over and they were greeted by an all-star band_

_And while the saints go marching in there's still hell to pay back down in Dixie Land_

_Yeah the storms are headed south again and the hour's getting pretty late_

_Somebody better build that levee its already Mardi Gras at heavens gate (yeah)_

 

 

Translation:

I hope so, sir, there is no one else.

No? And what do you want, my dear, that only I can give you?

My mother spoke of you, the white man going around with the houngans. (Voodoo high priests, especially Haitian).


	2. Black Dog's Head on the Killing Bed (You don't want to go with me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between Long Way Back from Hell and Le Grand Guignol, Cami deals with her issues the best way she knows (or doesn't know) how, and gets a text from Elijah summoning her to the Compound.

 

 

_There on fire_  
_In the veins of man_  
_There in misery_  
_There on fire_  
_In the veins of man_  
_Left for God to see_

Cami got out of the car and slammed the door closed hard enough to make a missing dog flyer flutter on a streetlamp. A labrador looked out imploringly at her, slightly blurry from what looked like a phone picture. Not that a clearer one would have helped, she thought bitterly, the poor thing was probably dead by now if the rest of New Orleans was having the same kind of luck as her.

She pulled out the keys and got into Rousseau's, closing behind her and hanging her coat behind the bar. She should be with her uncle right now, instead she was stuck here, and knowing there was nothing she could do really didn't make it it any easier but...

She looked around. It seemed impossible that the place should be so unchanged after everything that had happened there. That she should feel safe. She could remember Rebekah's arm pressing against her throat, could see Papa Tunde standing in the doorway, his suit spotless despite all the blood he had shed, Marcel falling to his knees, his skin turning grey and sick with black veins rippling upwards like snakes -she could feel his teeth in her neck. Worse, yet, she could remember his raw voice when he told her Davina was gone, this little girl, twirling in her white dress to the sound of jazz pouring out in the streets, eyes melting with a giant crush on her high school sweetheart. And...

_I've been hexed._

Standing here, in that empty room, the polished wood gleaming, the exposed bricks barely dented and scrubbed clean, the bottles in a neat row, it all felt like a nightmare. One she could wake up from if she wanted to. She'd fixed this up. Surely she could fix...she could...

She nearly poured herself a measure of whiskey, her old teacher's voice sounding in her head. Listing the stages of grief. Speaking of denial.

_Delusions of functionality are the building blocks of survival._

She let her hand fall back from the bottle. She thought of leaving, then, but dismissed that also. 

Sophie...Sophie had been a friend, if not a close one, and with everything that had happened she wasn't ready to give up one of the only places in New Orleans which made her feel a shred of stability. Which meant coming to work even when all she wanted was to be with her uncle and work at a solution which she had no way of finding. Meant bucking up when the new owner expected her to do the job of a manager instead of a bartender, as though she needed the extra pressure -at least she had a chef to replace Sophie. The thought of finding one -and one who'd be able to uphold the restaurant's reputation of carrying "the best gumbo in New Orleans" had filled her with trepidation -of course it didn't take much to do that, these days- but she'd struck gold on the second interview. She pulled out the books and started perusing the numbers she'd only abandonned long enough to drive over, eyes blurry and exhausted, desperate to ignore the memories pressing on her mind from all corners. How long had she been at this? And _where_ was _Klaus_? It wasn't that she approved of his kill first, ask questions later policy but she had kind of expected...Well, since he'd rushed off into the night, she had thought he would have killed the witch and broken the curse by now.

_Unless it's not that simple._

And there it was. The thought she'd been desperately trying to ignore as time went on and she heard nothing from Klaus. That it had to be broken with purposeful magic, the same way it had been cast because if it did...

The memory rose, unwelcome, scalding her eyelids. The gooseberry green eyes burning with a feverish fanatism contrasting starkling with the witch's cool, nearly disinterested voice:

_You see, dear, you failed to hold up your end of our bargain. You chose instead to side with evil as your uncle has done many times before you. But take heart. His punishment will atone for his attempts to prevent the Harvest. His suffering will purify him. You'd do well to heed his lesson, girl._

...If it did then she'd condemned her uncle to this, by siding with Klaus. Worse, yet, it didn't stop her worrying about the vampire. Bastianna had said that someone else had taken up her task, and she couldn't have forgotten what that knife did if she had wanted to. Untold horrors. Somehow that was even worse than graphic detail.

She nearly fell off when her phone buzzed, frantic in her hurry to answer it.

"Wow, you okay?"

She looked up, the female tones nearly giving her a heart-attack, but it was just the new girl, coming in a few minutes early. She checked the clock...or ten minutes late, actually.

"Hello? Earth to Cami?"

"Yes, I..." She checked her phone. "Look I have to go." She shoved the keys in the young woman's hands. "Can you hold up the fort?"

"What, from the kitchen?" asked the cook, bewildered, but the door had already slammed behind the blond bartender. 

_And it's a long way back from Hell  
And you don't want to go_


	3. Never See my Shade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KLAUS: These hexes, they start with magic, but as they take root, they alter the very chemistry of the brain. I'm sorry, Cami. The damage is done.  
> CAMI: I refuse to accept that, and you would, too, if you had any concept of family.  
> \- Moon Over Bourbon Street

 

 

_The brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast  
I've the face of a sinner but the hands of a priest _

_How could I be this way when I pray to god above  
I must love what I destroy and destroy the thing I love _

  

Maybe, Cami thought, pacing around the old Church Attic, another Original would be more help. She knew from her sessions as Klaus' "stenographer" that both Elijah and Rebekah had had witch's paramours -several, in Rebekah's case, although only one of these love stories had gone so far as to have the vampire buy a wedding dress, if she remembered well. Not that Elijah was in any way helpful. Neither was Klaus, really, at this point.

"I think we should thank the lord there are not more Original in town," said her uncle. He seemed to have exhausted his crazy for now.

"I don't know about that," she murmured, moping off his sweaty brow, remembering the start of a new chapter of Klaus' story -one they'd never gotten to finish. Klaus always gestured wildly when he spoke, and the light pouring in through his immense windows made him look deceptively ordinary.

_Shortly after we settled in Italy, the first Crusade started. It was nothing but peasant mobs, at first, but the higher classes did eventually get involved. It was considered a great honor, naturally. The Pope had announced that any who went to fight the enemies of Christ would ascend right to Heaven, regardless of any other sins. More importantly, Kol was chafing against Elijah's strict restrictions. He was always a wild thing, and if the happenings in France had taught us anything, it was that he would not be so easily reasoned with or restrained. He wanted to go, and, as it was obvious that the slaughters that were part and parcel of the endevour could hide his appetites better than any violence closer to home -however dreadful Rome itself was at the time, there was nothing to do but to let him have his way. He was expected home as soon as it was over, and he did come back, if not in a very timely manner. Being on time was never his way. Various Kingdoms were settling in Outremer and he always had something to do over there before he could even think of coming back, or so his letters said. He did eventually make his way home. It was the year 1114, he brought back enough Dark Objects and Grimoires to fill several museums. A pattern that certainly held true in latter years. Kol took part in nearly every one of the Crusades. After the Middle East it was Africa, in the 13th and 14th century. He was part of the force that conquered the state of Ayyubid, in Egypt. By his third century of life, my brother knew more magic than any witch, alive or dead, has ever managed to learn -or even to come by._

"You would like that, wouldn't you?" hissed her uncle, startling her out of her thoughts, "Batting your eyelashes at Klaus and running off at Elijah's whim, two Originals aren't enough to whore around with for you, are they, you little  _slut_?"

She stood, trying for calm though her hands were shaking so hard she could barely pick up her bag:

"I'll go get some coffee," she said, and fled before she could hear his answer. 

It was too much. A  _month_  of this. If Klaus hadn't killed the witch yet, it was past time he did, she decided, draining her latte and making for the compound.

 

 

It wasn't even an hour later that she stormed back into St Anne. She could taste the tears in her throat. Klaus' words ran around on a loop in her mind. 

_It won't do any good. Theses hexes, they start with magic but as they take root, they alter the very chemistry of the brain._

More like he was too busy with the witchy skank to keep his own promises.

_The damage is done._

"I don't accept that," she snapped at the empty pew. "I'll never accept that."

She took a deep breath and paused before entering. She shouldn't have bothered. Kieran was onbviously fine at the moment if the fact that he was trying to shackle himself to the floor was any indication. She leaned in the doorway, needing a second to breathe in relief:

"Is that really necessary?"

He looked up so fast she heard his neck crack from where she was, stumbling over the words to explain precisely  _how_  necessary he found it, seguing halfway through into another, particularly violent crisis where he almost killed her. Of course. 

Somehow all of that translated to getting wasted with Marcel - _understandable_ , she catalogued- and a drunken hook-up - _less understandable_.

It was a horrid relief that Marcel had found a witch to cast a boundary spell.

"I'm not letting go," she told Kieran, for what felt for the millionth time. Whether she was speaking to him or the thing that the hex brought out, she didn't know, but she needed to tell him, needed for the thing to not have the last word, especially not when that last word was nearly killing her. "You can be cured, I know you can."

"Even if I could," said Kieran tiredly, his eyes fixed on the dusty wooden floor, "You don't know one witch who'd so much as spit on me if I was on fire."

Cami froze. 

"Maybe I do", she said, slowly.

"What?"

She got to her feet and grabbed her bag:

"I'll be right back."

She heard him yell her name but she didn't look back. She'd started to recognize the shift in his tone, even though it still usually came too fast for her to get away in time. It was no longer her uncle speaking to her.

 

 

_Two months before, Rousseau's Kitchens_ :

 

"Wow," whistled the Chef. She'd been as adamant about being called Lettie as she herself was to be called Cami, making the blond feel a kinship with her which only an old French name that made drunken fratboys sing "Voulez vous couchez avec moi, ce soir" could create between two people.

She turned around, confused, and followed the Lettie's eyes. The remnents of the spell Sophie had cast for Marcel were still there, looking particularly weird in the stark light of day, she wondered how she could have missed them, but then you couldn't see much of the back kitchen unless you were already standing in it.

"Oh, god, don't mind this voodoo stuff," she blurted anxiously, with a sudden spike of raw stress at the idea that the woman might get spooked, leaving her to find another chef to replace Sophie -there was no way she could find somone else. She still couldn't believe she'd found someone at all.

Lettie laughed:

"Darling, that's not voodoo."

 

 

_Present Day_ :

 

Cami stopped. She'd been running nearly all the way to the restaurant but, suddenly, she felt an icy trickle of doubt. What if she was wrong? What if...No. She would not talk herself out of this.

"Worst comes to worse," she told herself decidedly, she'll think I'm nuts. 

Given the fact that she was talking to herself in the middle of the street, it probably wouldn't be too far off the mark.

She pushed the Kitchen door open. Lettie was there, as expected, making something which necessitated three different mixing bowls and smelled like Willy Wonka's factory. Cami felt tears pooling at her eyes unexpectedly. God, she was a mess. Probably about to make things worse, too. Desperate times...These days there was nothing but.

"Hey," she said nervously, wiping her sweaty hands on her pants.

Lettie looked up and smiled. For some reason she couldn't quite explain, Cami always expected her to have dimples:

"Hi", she said. "Didn't think you were gonna show."

If she had been any less agitated, Cami would have no doubt felt guilty, though it was obviously not what the girl intended. In the last month, Lettie had basically been taking care of Rousseau's on her own, though she was even less likely a manager than Cami herself. The blond opened her mouth, with a vague idea of apologizing or, more likely, of feeling her out somehow. But before she could quite decide whether to ask or how to ask, the story came out. All of it, her brother, the Harvest, Klaus, the witches and her uncle -an unstoppable word vomit until she'd talked herself all out and she was just standing there, shaking and hollow. Lettie was looking at her, her eyes, which usually looked more grey or green depending on how the light hit, seemed vividly blue today.

"Can you do something?" Cami asked, quietly, nearly too tapped out to even speak the words.

"I can try," said Lettie. She poured a praline-chocolate concoction in a large mold, and slid it into the oven and stuck the chocolate covered wooden spoon in her mouth, sounding like a little girl stuffing herself with cookie dough when she added: "Sooner would be better -whenever we get off tonight." 

It wasn't in the way of being a question but Cami still said yes -or breathed it, rather, nearly buckling where she stood. Lettie gave her the bowl and fished a clean spoon out of a drawer. 

"Go on", she said, when Cami gawked, "It's good for you." The blond hesitantly scraped the bowl and licked the chocolate praline off the spoon. It was thick and delicious and, suddenly, she was crying for real, great heaving sobs, clinging to that big blue bowl.

Lettie didn't comment, bustling around her. Cami pulled herself together, left her uncle a message and tended the bar, then they closed up and got into Lettie's car. It was short going, although she had to tell the witch where to go -Lettie had never been to St Anne's.

"What, never?" asked the blond, a bit bewildered. St Anne's had been such a big part of her childhood, and she knew it had been a center for the community as well, long before she had known how very peculiar that community was.

Lettie laughed:

"Tremé folk don't go to church around her any more than they did two hundred years ago, at least I don't know of any who do," she explained as she followed Cami up the stairs. Kieran started raging as soon as he heard the click of the door and Lettie stopped, staring at him, her head tilting slightly:

"That..." she started.

"Look," said Cami, hurriedly, interrupting whatever fatalist statement the woman was bound to make, "I've been told again and again that nothing could be done, that curing him was impossible, but I just..."

"I wouldn't say impossible," murmured Lettie, looking down at the dark smudge like cross on Kieran's hand where the hex had sunk. "But certainly difficult and...costly."

_Oh_.

"I..." Cami wet her lips, "I don't have a lot of money but -"

The witch waved her off, lips quirking up slightly:

"That's really not what I meant." She seemed thoughtful for a brief second, then, suddenly, she shrugged: "Oh, well."

She pulled a little water bottle out of her bag, along with a pack of chocolate cigarettes from which she extracted a little dried plant, root and all, with the branches curled around in the form of a ball. She shoved the pack back in her bag and looked around. 

"Here," she said, pointed over Cami's shoulder. "Hand me that, will you?"

The blond turned around and blinked:

"That?" she asked uncertainly, wondering why everyone ( _Klaus_ ) was so determined to use _that_ in particular.

"I need something for the water," explained the witch impatiently.

The blond only barely hesitated -she'd already brought a witch in a church to cast a spell, after all, why not hand her the Communion Cup?

Lettie sat down on her heels and started humming under her breath in another language as she put the plant in ; just the same thing, over and over: 

_Ye Gabrim khiff kun el yamin, itkhalli  ruh min ruh._ _Ye Gabrim khiff kun el yamin, itkhalli  ruh min ruh._ _Ye Gabrim khiff kun el yamin, itkhalli  ruh min ruh._ _Ye Gabrim khiff kun el yamin, itkhalli  ruh min ruh._ _Ye Gabrim khiff kun el yamin, itkhalli  ruh min ruh._

The candles flared up, and she felt the magic, heavy as lead, felt the heat of it, a haze of flashing, canicular, nauseous flares, so close they blended together, and blinding, like sunstroke. Her uncle let out a scrambled, garbled cry then, suddenly and disorientatingly, it was over and the cross on his hand was gone. The whole thing hadn't taken a minute.

"That's it?"

When Lettie had told her it would be "costly", she'd imagined...

The girl got up, wiping her hands on her skirt:

"Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't," she said, picking up her bag. "You and your uncle need a ride?"

 

 

Davina woke up with a start. Somewhere in the silent lycée, a bird let out a brief, haunting call. Something had happened, something had changed, something... _someone_ was  _here_. She slid out of bed and opened her door, nearly at the same moment that Monique's slammed opened. Abbigail came down the corridor, in the dark she looked ethereal and strange.

"Someone's here," she said.

They nodded, and the three of them tumbled down the stairs, as quietly as magic could make them. Davina heard a knock, but it didn't come from the door, it was just...there. Inside her head.

Abigail opened the door. On the other side, a slender brunette in mud-stained clothing was looking at the crest above the door.

"Cassy?"

The girl looked down slowly and her eyes travelled from face to face. For a moment she looked completely blank, then a slow smile came upon it.

"Hello, dear girls."

 

 

_Oh you'll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet  
While there's a moon over bourbon street_

 


	4. Switch Lane and Pull Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KLAUS: You use my full name, as though we are familiars. I find it insulting. [beat] Before she died, a witch revealed that your coven was under my mother's influence. [He smiles fakely] Does she speak to you now?
> 
> CASSIE/ESTHER: [smiles back] She doesn't have to-- I know exactly what she would say. She would tell you to go to your room for being so rude.
> 
> \- Alive and Kicking.

_In light of everything Im not going outside._

_I'm falling apart, thinking about not a thing thats building me up._

 

 

When Davina had woken, memories of the night before vivid in her mind, she had thought she was waking up from a nightmare. The day had not gotten better from there. Not because Cassy had come back from the other side even more obviously wrong and psycho freaky than Monique, but because, seriously? Yoga? This thing  _gagged_. 

She took as deep a breath as she could seeing as her neck was bent nearly at an angle and she could only take very shallow breaths and tried hard to concentrate, adjusting her pose. The tryak tala vrikshasana -a variation on the Swaying palm tree pose. The palm was a powerful tree, serving for cleansing, transformation, transition, victory and  _oh god her neck was killing her_!

_Vie des ancêtres, renforcer noblesse. Comme des ancêtres, de coeur noblesse. Décider on de ancêtres, garder noblesse_ , she repeated once again. She felt the magic rise before the wind rose, blowing through the crypt. Indistinc echoes whispered around them and the ground rumbled beneath them, growing stronger and louder until the whole world was shaking, before it slowly died down. She carefully extracted herself from the vault's wall, her legs cramping so badly, she only barely managed to stay on her feet, as Abigail dropped gracefully from a perfect salamba sirsasana.

Cassy smiled and suddenly the shooting pain in Davina's blocked neck and the debilitating migraine that made her sight blurry were nowhere  _near_  the worst thing around. She remembered the other side. The dark. The cold. The awful whispers crawling across her skin and scorching her ears, how some of those words had stopped her breathing until her throat closed up and the pain swallowed her whole, and others had felt like being ripped to shreds. She could see all of it in Cassy's eyes, and suddenly she was dead scared.

"It's time."

 

 

Klaus was sitting in a chair at half level when Elijah came down, nursing a glass of bourbon and looking predictably smug. 

'Seems your wonderfully helpful allies are now in a position to channel enough power to shake the entire city on its fondations. You'd think they would have thought to inform you of something like that.' He gave a nasty look to the construction workers down below, who had come to restore the Compound at Elijah's behest, and were slowly extracting themselves from doorways, checking around worriedly for any sign of a second tremor. 'Not that an earthquake makes much of a difference with the all this  _bloody racket_.'

Elijah straightened his already perfectly jacket, smoothing down the front. To his befuddled dismay, Klaus' eyes followed his hands down, slightly hooded. It was a tactic he used to put Elijah ill at ease when he was feeling particularly vile and one which never failed to fluster and disturb him, despite the numerous counts of incests their enhanced senses had made them unable to ignore over the centuries. He knew very well Klaus meant to gain nothing by it but the pleasure of seeing him lose his legendary composure, but the knowledge did not keep his hands from dropping to his side nervously. He gave his brother his sternest, most displeased look.

'In fact the witches have sought out a meeting at my earliest convenience.'

His brother's answering looked was vividly amused and triumphant:

'I assume that meeting is about to be moved up,' he said lazily.

Elijah did not deign to answer, neither did he move away -though he in fact stayed put somewhat too pointedly for Klaus to be anything but entertained by it. He did, however, send the workers away. The blond snorted, draining his glass.

'Since we are having a short reprieve from this three-ring _circus_ , I will take some time to paint. Call me when it gets interesting.'

To say Elijah did move up the meeting would have been an understatement. Forty-five minutes later the Harvest Girls swept through the courtyard. All four of them.

'Well,' said Elijah calmly when the four of them had sat down at a beautiful oak coffee table, with cups of Da Hong Pao tea grafcefully poured by a slender, compelled blond woman, 'this,' he eyes settled on the newly arisen brunette, 'answers a few lingering interrogations from this morning's...happenings -Niklaus do you intend to lurk in the doorway during this whole meeting? I believe our guests might find it somewhat unsettling.'

His brother returned him an expressionless look, not even giving a token reaction to his words.

'And Genevieve?' he asked.

'Ah,' said the new girl -Cassy, if Elijah was not mistaken-, she put down her cup of tea with a very purposeful, precise gesture which made Klaus' eyebrows knit. 'Genevieve has gone back to the Ancestors.'

'It was her time,' said Monique, with a vicious sort of calm.

'Did she agree with that?' asked Klaus. To Elijah's alarm, his voice had risen slightly, and his eyes had turned from cool and careless to hard and glittering angrily too fast even for himself to pinpoint.

Cassy -yes, he was quite certain that was her name- tilted her head, puzzled:

'You  _cared_  for her, didn't you? In your  _own_  way.'

Something sparked in Klaus' eyes, and he studied her carefully, blue eyes narrowed. Her presence, the way she carried herself, the way she spoke, the condamnation he read in her eyes...All of it was...so _very_ familiar...so very _obvious_.

'Defective as it is,' he said. 'I'm afraid I take after my mother in that department. She was  _quite_  insane. Incapable of any true feelings beyond her own selfishness.' 

Elijah stared, aware that something more was happening at this moment than was apparent, but uncertain as to what.

'She was a monster, you know,' Klaus went on, finally leaving the entrance to settle in a chair. 'Perfectly loathsome. Abominations, she called us. But she was the one who changed us, stole our innocence, our  _lives_ , condemned us to an eternity of bloodlust, and then acted as if we were to blame for  _her_  mistakes,  _her_  pride, her entire disdain of the rules of the very nature she claimed to serve. Because that is why the spell she cast went so wrong, you know. Despite her great magic, in spite of all her power she was a very. Bad. Witch.'

'Well,' said Cassy, a fake, hard smile on her lips. 'She sounds awful. Are you building up to a question, Niklaus?'

'Oh, no,' said the hybrid, standing up. 'I have all the answers I need.'

Then, without so much as a blur to mark his moving, he was gone.

'I apologise for my brother's behavior, I believe his attachement to Genevieve was far stronger than I gave it credit for.' 

Cassy smiled. It was no fake, this time, but it was quite disturbing for all that. There was a underlying madness there which transformed her face, for all its outward innocence into something nearly nightmarish.

'The honorable Elijah, always and forever making excuses for his brother. In fact there is a request I wished to make but I believe that is for another day. I will see you and your brother  _very_  soon.'

Elijah watched them go, bemused and perturbed.

'What was that?' he asked, well award that his brother had reentered the room as the four witches left the Compound.

'Come now Elijah,' said Klaus. 'Surely you recognized your own mother.' He put down something too heavy to be a glass and a sideway glace confirmed he had just emptied their most expensive bottle of bourbon. 'I'm going out.'

'What?' said Elijah, belatedly reacting to the staggering announcement. But Klaus had left in the witches' trail, leaving him alone to deal with his demons.

_Shake, shake, just like before. Breathe hard and feel indifferent._

_Shake, shake, just like before._

"What happened to her?"

Dr Hà-nhân-gia a gangly young man with Brad Pitt cheeks and a sad lack of ability at shaving, scrambled to his feet, nearly pushing a piece of po' boy out of his nose and bending in two to cough and snort his heart out, jumping out of his skin forgotten in the commotion. 

The man stared at him, face expressionless. He was young, blond, and on the slender side and really had no business being as terrifying as he was. And he was. Really. Really  _fucking_  scary.

"Are you with -" 

The blue eyes fixed on him stopped him better than a road sign.

"What," the man repeated coldly, "happened to her?"

Nhân-gia found himself hurrying to the corpse, fumbling with the tag fastened to the delicately bronze painted toe.

'Says here, heart-attack like event,' he said, nervously, wishing the case hadn't been so damned weird -then the Morgue attendant would have been dealing with this and he wouldn't have po'boy spice attached to his nasal cavity. The man was looking at him again, and his heart picked up -seriously, he looked like a Tulane university student, why did it feel like he was being surrounded by a pack of growling coyotes, in the dark, when their eyes did that creepy, glowy thing? And, okay, now the dude's eyes were doing a glowy, creepy thing. Man he needed to stop eating fugu. The tingling was real nice, but hallucinations suggested he was getting to critical poisoning. Not that hallucinations were even a side effect of tetrodoxyn.

"What?" He asked, realizing he's been asked a question. Christ but he was sweating.

"What. Does that. Mean?" Repeated the man. He did not look amused, and there was a rumble  underlining his word which Nhân-gia could have  _sworn_  he's heard  _gators_  make. He cleared his throat:

"Well, it's not a heart-attack -we can tell that because the levels of oxygene in her blood were stable, when someone has a heart-attack, they're very low."

"And definitely no aneurysm?" 

The coroner wet his lips, shaking. His stomach chose that moment to growl, and he thought  _Oh god, I'm gonna die_.

"No, sir," he squeaked. "We checked."

"What  _did_  she die off, exactly?" Asked the man. He leaned in. His pupils were dilating in a way that suggested he was  _on_  something. " _No,"_ he added _,_  "unintelligible doctor talk."

 _Definitely gonna die._  He found the words came out without check now. Just flowing out.

"Well...nothing. She just...up and died. Body shut down, all organs at once, even looks like the bloodflow just stopped. And there's no sign of freezing, either, not that that would explain..."

"What?"

Yeah, he really needed to learn to shut up.

"It's just normally she's be at the Morgue, but some o' the detectives they suspected some kind of grave robbing, you know, maybe for ritual purposes."

The man blinked at him curiously:

"Now, why would they think that?"

"Well, she's the second woman in as many months who's showing some pretty disturbing stuff. Last one already had a death certificate, for one. She was also showing signs of post mortem manipulation, just like this one."

A raised dark gold eyebrow triggered more spouting of information he really should have been keeping to himself.

"Evidence of burial. Mortician's molding wax, trocars -although mind you the one in  _her_  skull is seriously vintage stuff. Some people are talking serial killer, especially since the other one was already listed as a victim in a multiple murder case which went cold for like...no reason. Someone's getting sacked. Thank god it isn't me."

A smell, amused smile touched the man's lips and it occured to Nhân-gia quite suddenly and very inoportunately that the creepy guy really was super hot. He swallowed hard and thanked everyone who might be listening for labcoats. The man's smile turned into a smirk, which reminded him how creepy he was all over again. It really shouldn't have made his...issue... _worse_. Of course it did anyway.

'What?' he asked, wincing when he realised he'd missed the guy's question.  _Again_.

This time he only got a widened smirk for the blunder.

'Are they reopening the case?' the man repeated easily.

'I don't think so. Didn't find anything linking them to the suspect. And the case was dismissed last time.'

The blond startled:

'There was a suspect?'

'Yeah, uh, Kaleb Westphal. I remember cause they had me run a DNA check. It looks totally run of the mill in those series on TV but we never run DNA checks. We don't have the funding, or the time, for that matters. It was my first.' He paused, thought. 'That was accurate but it still sounded wrong.'

The man laughed. His laugh was rich and amused, and again, kind of at odds with his apparence, though Nhân-gia would have been hard put explaining how except that it was way too sophisticated and worldly for his apparant age -which was at least a couple of years below his own.

'Why was he a suspect?' he asked, sounding genuinely curious, now.

'He knew everyone there, and he'd fought with, like, four of the victims. They asked me to look at them special. His parents, his ex-girlfriend,  _her_  parents. They all had words, like, the week before, and he and his girl broke up then this gigantic ritual murder thing, plus he had all this hoodoo shit at his place...but I couldn't find anything to link him to the murders.'

'A Harvest-resistant French Quarter Witch in exile. That's an information worth its weight in gold.'

The coroner blinked, dumbfounded:

'What?'

'Never you mind, many thanks for your help,' he leaned in close. His perfume was  _way_  expensive. And seriously heady. ' _Doctor_.' Nhân-gia shivered all over. 'You will forget all about this.'

The doctor blinked and finished his sandwich, although, for some reason he couldn't quite figure out, he found himself making a very serious note on his phone to change his sushi order.

Klaus made a pit stop at one of the offices upstairs and compelled the witch's address out of a cop who proved far chattier than compulsion called for -something his fetid breath and inane choice of information rendered less than desirable.

'You wouldn't believe the weird ass crap we get around here,' he rattled on as he looked for Kaleb Westphal on his computer and wrote down the address. 'Couple weeks ago, we get to a pet store. Every piece of glass in the place from the windows to the fish bowls shattered into a thousand pieces. Can't account for everything, cameras up and down the street shattered, too. Then we get an eye witness. Y'know what she saw? Woman dressed like a Mardi Gras parade coming out with a lizard. Just one big lizard. All that for a one lizard theft. Do you believe that?'

'Forget this happened,' answered Klaus, pulling out his phone as it rung for the millionth time. 'And brush your bloody teeth.' He pressed the open call button. 'Yes?"

"Finally!" said Olliver. The werewolf sounded particuliarly stressed out. "I've been waiting for you for half an  _hour_  and this guy is squirmy as  _hell_." Klaus blinked, before remembering that he'd tasked the blond pain in the ass with finding his father's descendant -Cary. 

"I'll be there in a few seconds, and you, young wolf, should try remembering who it is you are dealing with in that time." He closed the phone and sped away. 

Olliver was decently scared, when he arrived, filling the Church with the scent of cold sweat, bayou and wolf.

"Look, the priest is still locked up upstairs," he said, by way of apology, his heart racing madly. "It freaks me out, man."

Klaus rolled his eyes, but waved the offense away, too interested in the slender blond wolf sitting on the altar steps.

"I don't believe we've had the pleasure of an introduction," he said warmly. 

Cary looked at him, searching the features before him. There were similarities there which he had not actually, old bonfire stories or not, expected to find.

"The legends of my people, they say you're descended from our line."

Klaus smiled:

"The legends are true," he confirmed, throwing an arm around him. It felt ever so peculiar that...need to be close. Like calling like. The wolf within. It was the first he truly felt it, like  _that_.  _Connection_. So that was the sense of "pack", werewolves were always clamouring about. Hayley's need to bury herself in that bog suddenly made a lot more sense. He pulled his father's ring out of his pocket. He had expected to feel some manner of reluctance, but there was no trace of it. "This ring," he said, allowing Cary to take it, surprised at the sight, but not at Klaus' actions, "I understand it's been passed down through generations of our family. I need to know what stone it housed."

Cary blinked, bemused:

"Why's everyone wanna know about that all of a sudden?"

_Switch lanes and pull over my car, it's early. It's too late for this._

_I never knew you could make new friends so fast, congrats. Congratulations._


	5. Who They Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FINN: [worriedly] They're defiant by nature, and they've grown very strong. How do you expect to show them the error of their ways?  
> ESTHER: [laughs] I will systematically destroy everything they hold dear.
> 
> ESTHER: And, when they are at their lowest point, in their deepest despair, they will have no choice but to beg me to release them from their pain. [She smirks] And, because I love them, I will.
> 
> -Every Mother's Son

_Sometimes I wonder is this the end of the line_

_No one should take advantage of who they are_

_No man has got it made_

_If he thinks he does, he's wrong_

 

"What is this?" asked Klaus, lazily coming down the stairs, fresh from the shower.  His chosen clothing and an accidentally judicious lighting gave him an angelic look. It was a beautiful morning, and the sun, pouring through the window, struck his golden hair, giving the illusion of a halo. 

Elijah held the calligraphied card aloft.

"An invitation. From our mother."

The blond raised an eyebrow and took a look at the card.

"Inviting  _herself_. Do you think that's supposed to be charming?" 

"She did mention a request."

Klaus threw down the card and bit into a beignet, putting the rest back on the plate: 

'I've had better.' He decided, before walking off.

Elijah stared:

"Where are you going?" 

The blond waved a piece of paper, making Elijah blink in confusion, he caught a snipet of address and a name -Kaleb:

"We need a witch ally," said Klaus, "and I believe I found one."

Elijah sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, his brother had a point, an ally among the witches was needed given the current situation -one outside of the French Quarter witches, and, therefore, outside of their alliance. With another sigh he set out for Algier. After all, there was only one person who knew the witches of the city better than the witches themselves, and whatever puerile resentment Marcel chose to hang on to, despite having left with his  _life_  after his betrayal -a rare enough occurence to be noted, especially when it hadn't been done to make a point- Elijah had no patience for it at the moment.

In fact Marcel was as petulant as he had expected him to be:

"You chased me out of the French Quarter, Elijah," he said, taking a long pull of bourbon, "what makes you think I'd want to help you?"

"You would do well to remember, Marcel," said the Original, refolding his pocket hankerchief neatly, "I can  _make_  you."

Marcel snorted, a sound which carried an unfortunate reminder of Klaus:

"Well, aren't you a breath of fetid air, today. It's almost as if your big beautiful French Quarter charter isn't enough to keep away a migraine." 

He handed Elijah the paper with the address on it.

"There, knock yourself out." He took another drink. "One can only hope."

Elijah paused on his way out.

"You do try my patience, Marcellus," he said, cooly.

"You were always particularly vile when you got bored of your toys," said Marcel bitterly.

Elijah swallowed, a shadow of regret clogging his throat. He rarely lingered on the way he had cut short his relationship with Marcellus at a time where his brother's redemption had seemed so near, and so very dependant on being the sole focus of the boy's affection. He had meant it for the best, and he knew without a doubt he would do it again. He closed his eyes and sped away.

He found the witch as indicated, grinding herbs, quite unapologetically blatant in practising magic.

"Go away, I'm busy," was her greeting. Elijah ignored it.

"I have a favor to ask of you."

She snorted. He wondered where everyone's sudden obsession with that particular expression of disdain came from.

"Quarter's crawling with witches. Friends of yours, even, go ask one of them."

"Ah, but this requires a more...delicate hand." He looked around the shop. "It's unfortunate, isn't it? Bureaucracy has not been kind to your community. Those tax incentives on local businesses have been stalling for  _months._ Of course, a  _persuasive_  person could potentially remove any red tape."

The witch paused, putting down the pestle.

"I'm listening."

 

 

"You smell of magic," said Klaus. "And snake. Field trip?"

Elijah walked over to him and poured himself a glass of bourbon. They were running out, he noted, Klaus had been consuming more than usual.

"I saw the wisdom of your ealier premise. With our mother in a position of power among the witches, allies and...precautions are necessary. I don't suppose you saw fit to have anything prepared for lunch?"

"I'd like this meal to go as fast as physically possible. Lack of food should accomplish that."

"Hardly a show of good will."

"Since her last invitation was an assassination attempt on her children, one must assume any good will to have gone to an early grave. But please, go ahead and plan. I'm sure a nice meal and fancy dress will change her mind on vampire kind."

"What of your witch?" he called after his brother.

"They found him first," said Klaus, slamming the door behind him. "Call me -"

"-when it gets interesting," finished Elijah tiredly. "Yes. I know." 

 

 

In fact Elijah found overseeing the arrangements for this particular meal quite as tedious as Klaus himself might have. He kept the number of courses to the absolute minimum and compelled a Sommelier to chose the wine rather than going through the trouble of doing so himself. He didn't mean it as a slight, although he both understood and acknowledged the insult. He simply couldn't be fussed at the moment. Convincing his brother to wear a suit was another chore he could have done without, especially when, on the appointed time, the witch who came through the door was not their mother at all but a handsome blond youth with intense blue eyes, and fair unmarked skin carrying the mingled scents of serpent, gingerbread and old printing paper. 

"Of course," said Klaus, sounding unusually vicious and disgusted, "the sycophant leads the way, smoothing the path for the elephant in the room."

The witch's eyes narrowed:

"It astonishes me, that you could consider yourself the injured party in this, in  _anything_."

"Well," sneered the hybrid "you were never very bright,  _Finn_."

Elijah looked on, blindsided as Finn opened his arms wide.

'Since the introductions are out of the way,' he said, 'let's eat.'

Klaus shrugged, and took a seat, somehow managing to turn compliance into an insult and picked up a bottle from the table:

'Wine? Should we really be enabling teenage alcoholism? It's a real problem, you know. As concerned citizens, we should do our best to limit such...unfortunate behavior.'

Finn glared venomously:

'Your callow behavior only showcasts your inability to improve on your miserable self. Pray, what have been your contributions to society in the...nine hundred years that I was daggered? Art? Philosophy? Medecine?"

"Well, I did procure the elusive cure to werewolf venom. After  _all these years_. I was all aflutter.' 

Elijah took a bite of blackened redfish:

'Where is our mother?' he cut in, supremely uninterested with what could only, in his opinion, be considered inane squabbling.

'Oh, my darling son,' her sudden appearance in the entrance-way could only be the result of a cloaking spell being removed. She sat down at the head of the table. 'I've missed you, too.' She wore the Channel perfume she had in Mystic Fall, and he found it so completely associated with his mother in his mind already that it seemed quite disturbing when mingled with the scent of teenage girl. Her smile was that of a marble Virgin. A curve of pure peace, but cold and stony. Hollow.

Klaus rolled his eyes:

'Why don't you say what you have to say so this wretched meal can end?' he suggested. 'All your gift at twisting words won't make us any gladder to be in your  presence.'

She shook her head, tutting at him as through he were an unruly child:

'It pains me that you and Elijah can look at me with such disdain. I wish you could see that my every action has been to protect you.'

'It pains  _me_ ,' said Klaus, who was in decidedly good form that day, 'to have to listen to your delusional ramblings.' He turned to Elijah, deliberately ignoring the two witches. 'Can we get on with this?'

Elijah took a brief moment to watch Klaus as the top of his game. The way he turned to him with a sense of such intimacy, such familiarity as to make anyone else an interloper. The way he looked at him, at once bored and trustful, expecting his older brother to get them out of this situation. Their mother's forehead knotted. Finn's scowl grew more furious, still.

'Of course, brother,' said Elijah, a part of him helplessly admiring of the methods to Klaus' manipulations. 'Mother, I believe you mentionned a request. Discretion being the best part of valor, perhaps we could...speed up...this process?'

'Of course,' Ester said, sounding more upset than she no doubt intended. 'I'm told our coven hasn't been able to celebrate feast days in the open since your...protégé... restricted the use of magic. Now with the new peace, I'd like that to change.'

Klaus started laughing. Hard. Ester looked on stonily and turned to Elijah:

'You, my son, drew up the contract for this peace, and you have not a single reason to break that contract.'

'Oh, yes we do,' said Klaus. 'And so  _many_  more. Ask for a list, I dare you.'

'If you could forger the hatred you cling to and remember all the times I've mended and healed.'

Klaus threw his fork back on the plate:

'I'll pass. Elijah?'

'Yes, I think so.' He lifted a hand to prevent her speaking. 'The last time you threw a party, mother, you tried to kill us all. I'm...not interested in having a repeat.'

'You mistake me, my dear. I have come to heal our family. It is why I came here, today. Of course,' she added, as Finn eyed them behind cool blue eyes, 'when I suggested a family dinner, I did mean for all of my children to attend.'

Klaus stared at her, making not the slightest move to answer. Elijah put down his expensive silver fishknife and dabbed his mouth with the monogrammed napkin:

'Rebekah is unavailable, I'm afraid,' he said mildly.

Their mother acknowledged this with an incline of her head, frowning nonetheless:

'But Kol is not, I'm sure. Where is your brother?'

Klaus snorted, his blue eyes flashing with genuine hatred:

'You do remember that Kol was killed? Or is your age catching up to you? If you wanted him there, maybe you should have brought him back along with Bloody Boring over there.'

Ester looked from Klaus to Elijah carefully, then at Finn whose eyebrows had gone up, disappearing beneath his ridiculous, foppish blond hair.

'You do not know?' she asked, sounding genuinely startled for the first time since she had appeared in this new guise. 'Kol was not on the Other Side when I looked for him. He came back long before I was ever consecrated.' Shea searched their faces. 'This is truly news to you. Interesting. Well,' she stood, 'you know as well as I do that the witches will never accept accept a truce unless you show them some respect. Come, Finn.'

 

 

Elijah winced as yet another priceless antic met its end against a wall. 

"Is there a single witch in this godforsaken city who is not possessed either by an old flame or a family member?!" bellowed Klaus.

His brother watched him pace, all grace and fury, blue eyes flashing. The brunette Original took a sip of Bourbon:

"Apparently not." He stood. "I should go -speak to the Factions, make sure they show up for this...Feast...."

Klaus whirled around, eyes flashing:

"You intend to  _cave in_  to our mother's demands?!"

"She  _is_  right about the witches, sadly. We must give them this respect they so violently crave, or wholly lose this Truce and any prospect of peace in the French Quarter."

"Grand," groaned the blond. "Now the bitch is  _union_. This little system of yours is getting more tedious by the day, brother."

Elijah lifted an eyebrow and Klaus grimaced:

"Oh, go on." 

The unmistakable sound of moving air told him his brother had left the room. He fell down into a chair, letting his head fall back against the chair. The last time he had seen Kol -

_Elena Gilbert staring out of Tatia's face. Selfish, defiant, cold and monstrous in a way some people could never be. All that vicious Petrova streak coming out of her self-serving, self-righteous little body. Once he had believed he could never hate one wearing that face. "You said you were going to put him down too."_

heard Kol -

_"Don't pretend like you're not in on it. Your obsession to find the cure clearly trumps any sibling loyalty you once felt. I'm going to rip off Jeremy's arm and kill Elena just for sport. Then I'm coming for you."_

 

He stood, suddenly unable to sit still. 

 _"I'm coming for you."_   

 

 

_Every mother's son better hear what I say  
Every mother's son will rise and fall someday_


	6. Live and Let Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Kol uses his fingers to scoop up an herbal poultice that he's made in a bowl and spreads it over Davina's injured foot]  
> DAVINA: [wrinkles her nose] Ugh, it smells like--  
> KOL: --The wrong end of something quite dead? Yeah. It's just a little something I picked up from a shaman bloke in Uganda. [He finishes treating her ankle] There you go!  
> [Davina sighs in relief and tries to stand up]  
> DAVINA: Wow, the pain is just--  
> [She stumbles on her numb foot, but Kaleb/Kol catches her before she can hit the floor]  
> KOL: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!  
> [He sits her down on the bench next to him]  
> KOL: It's magic, alright? It's not a miracle.
> 
> -Live and Let Die

_**When you were young and your heart** _

_**Was an open book** _

_**You used to say live and let live** _

 

Uganda, 14th c.

 

Butterflies covered every line and surfaces of the little hut in vibrant blues and white, moving into the air in bright ballets, complex and lovely. It made the girl smile weakly. She had always loved butterflies.

The old man watched her joy with shadowed eyes. He was the only one that remained, having armored himself with a protection spell that would bring him back once the disease had killed him. But it was too late for her. She'd been infected before the man could cast the spell, making preventive magic no longer an option. For this there was no cure. All he could do was take away the pain, and try to make her happy.

 

The creature came in the night. How strange it looked, with its queer pale skin like a mask.

' _Are you come to take me away_?" she asked in her own tongue. 

He smile:

" _No, darling, I'm here to bring you back_."

She watched in fascination as his face rippled as though black serpents moved beneath the skin and his teeth elongated to lion's fangs, and he bit his wrist and offered it to her to drink.

 

When the shaman woke the girl was dancing amidst a flurry of butterflies. The creature looked his way, and disappeared without a sound.

" _It saved me, you know_ ," said the little girl. His baby girl, well and strong and happy. " _It came and gave me its magic, healing blood and now I feel wonderful_."

His mind was full.  _Death and healing. Dark and light. As all things._

" _If you come again,_ " he said, knowing the creature would hear, " _I will teach you."_

And the girl danced.

 

Back to the Present:

 

"I bring more offerings of food, " said Cami with a smile, stepping into St Anne's Church attic with a couple of plastic tupperwares in her hands, labelled in Lettie's beautiful handwriting. 

"You don't have to come everyday," said her uncle, looking tired.

"Right. Well, maybe I wouldn't feel compelled to check on you so much if you hadn't taken to chaining yourself to the floor. Now I'm not quite finished with my psych degree, but I'm pretty positive that's not normal." She sighed, putting down the tupperwares on a small antique table. "It's been weeks, uncle Kieran. You're obviously cured. And your ankle's starting to look like a 19th century convict's in a B movie."

"I shouldn't be."

"What?"

"Cured. Cami, our family has documented the dark objects used throughout the French Quarter for centuries. This rosary has been used several times, it cannot be gotten around."

"You don't believe that. You said yourself you tried to cure Sean, you must have thought there was a way."

"I hoped. I went through those files, cover to cover, a dozen times and every time I came to the same conclusion. That I was wrong. I can't risk this. I can't put you in danger."

Cami bit her lip, busying herself with forking the meal into two plastic plates. She brought him one, with some cuttlery, which, when he just stared at her, she switched for a spoon with a sigh.

"Francesca Correa threatened me, today." Kieran froze. "She wants some sort of key. Says we can do it the nice way, or...well she didn't finish the sentence but her meaning was pretty clear."

Her uncle was shaking his head frantically:

"No, she...she can't, she..."

"She disagrees. Apparently without you around she's the leader of the human faction. And with the party tonight..."

His head snapped up:

"What party?"

"The Fête des Bénédictions? The new coalition is having a little bash afterwards, to show they're going strong. Francesca will be representing the human faction, and she and Elijah have made quite the event of this. The Buccaneer's sold out, and there isn't a free Balcony in Bourbon Street, big restaurants are dishing out $5 samplings -I suspect Elijah made a  _compelling_  argument. People are already lining the streets."

Cami was in two minds about the Fête des Bénédictions. On the one hand, she didn't trust anything going on with the factions one whit, on the other, she couldn't help thinking it was a good thing. To see Davina treated as one of the Harvest Girls instead of hurt and hunted and reviled couldn't be wholly bad. Besides, this was a bigger deal for the witches than she could understand. Lettie had gotten all crazy about it -and while, admittedly, it didn't take much for the Bourbon Street Golden Girl to go crazy -she was up on that bar dancing more often than not-, this was obviously a special occasion. She'd made flyers, and banners -she'd come  _early_. Lettis didn't  _do_  early. The girl was  _wired_  to systematically make an entrance. She'd come in to set out muffalettas long as a basketball league player's leg, she'd lit the crawfish pot and started mixing the Bloody Marys and cutting up the chicken right after she'd fed her kid breakfast, for God's sake. People had started trailing into Rousseau's at brunch time, and hadn't left.

Still her uncle's expression told her there was more to Francesca Correa's insistance about whatever that key was, and about her involvement in this little shindig than met the eye. She couldn't help a small prick of annoyance that even chained up and smelling like weeks of sponge-bathing with a bucket -seriously, he needed a shower- Kieran still knew more about what was going on than she did, but she pushed down the thought. He'd been at this a long time and she couldn't keep being mad at him for hiding things from her forever. She tilted her head:

"You sure you don't want the key to those chains?"

He sagged in defeat and she grinned. It didn't mean she couldn't enjoy a little victory once in a while.

 

 

Davina's eyes fluttered open. For a second, she wasn't quite certain what had woken her, then she heard them -drumbeats in the distance, the faint sounds pouring through the opened windows, and she felt the brass drums pounding in her chest, as the gentle breeze blew in, carrying the mingled scents of the Mississipi River with it -algae and fish, diesel and jasmine. She wondered what they were cooking downstairs -they'd -or, rather, Cassy'd -spoken about the elements represented in the Harvest. No doubt there was magic afoot on that wind. 

Davina's element was fire and the dress she was to wear had been hung on the wardrobe. She couldn't help the spark of excitement running through her. It was glowing red, like those dresses you saw actresses wearing at the Oscars and when she touched it it felt silky and cool. Suddenly she couldn't wait to put it on, and she was chucking off her pjs and wriggling into it, her speed only hindered by how much she wanted it unharmed. And once she was in it she had a giddy, foolish, soft feeling. She felt...She laughed and twirled in the blue lit room. She felt _pretty_. She twirled and twirled until she nearly fell against the wall, dizzily watching all the gorgeous blue light, so exactly like when she and Tim had sat together at Alix's party with their feet in the pool, and they'd been alone and she'd thought maybe he was about to kiss her. 

"I was."

Tim was looking at her from the foot of the bed.

"T...Tim?"

He smiled. His smile was the same.

"Hey, Davina."

The sound of his voice made her eyes fill with tears and her mouth taste like dead music and salt, and she remembered the last parade they'd been at. How he'd carried her on his shoulders so she could get a better view of the parade, and caught a string of beads and put it around her neck. His fingers had grazed her face.

"Why are you here?"

Was he angry that she could be so happy? So stupid? That she'd just forgotten -?

"I wouldn't miss this."

And suddenly she wasn't scared of having let him down anymore, she was just tired, and  _sad_ , and lonely. Once even the thought of Tim would have meant she couldn't -just physically  _couldn't_  feel lonely.- And now all she wanted to do was cry.

"You are. You're dead."

"It's okay. I'm coming back."

 

Davina woke up with a cry. Someone was pouding on the door, and the room was empty, and there was no one there. 

"Coming," she stuttered, hurrying to get into the dress.

A dream. 

She closed the door of her room behind her, mindful of the small train.

From the mirror, Tim watched her leave and smiled.

 

The noise hit her as soon as the girls were ushered through the crowds. She caught a look of Abigail's long flowing cloak made of white and silver feathers as she was helped up unto a throne nearly as old as the city itself, then she was going  _up,_ and she could see down St Charles at the thousands of visitors and locals lining the parade route, at the red plastic cups of beer and the Hundred Pieces boxes of fried chicken and... A gasp coursed through the crowd like an electric charge, and there was spontaneous applause, music and laughter and cheers filling the air as the marching bands got going, and her eyes ached at the riot of colors. Across the street, people thronged the balconies of the Buccaneer Hotel. Faces looked down on her from rooftops and balconies everywhere.

The Flambeaux carriers danced up the street on each side of the girls, twirling poles of fire, while witches tossed "throws" to the audience lining both sides of the avenue : the classic beads, mojo bags in the colors of the elements, flowers and rubber birds, plastic tiaras and sparkling red doll shoes. Everything passed by in a blur, the sound a ferocious roar in which individual voices, and music were lost and when they were put down her ears were ringing like there were a thousand windchimes and a tornado in her head.

A dark haired witch introduced them to the crowd as they climbed onto the scene, looking out at the thousands of people amidst the noise, her breath caught when she saw a boy carrying a girl on his shoulders so she could get a better look in the thick of the crowd. Then the blessing was starting, the earth, rumbling beneath their feet, then the wind lifted around them, lifting hair and skirt and causing squeals of protests and approval, followed by the Fountain build up on the scene behind them lighting up and surging with water, and then it was Davina's turn. And the fireworks lit up the sky. The crowd went wild but the girls didn't stay, already heading for the party at the all too familiar compound. Her throat locked. It was so bright. It hurt her eyes. She felt dizzy. 

_I wouldn't miss this._

She wrapped her arms around herself and pressed into the wall.

 

Hayley took a sip of her drink. There was a part of her that couldn't help but be glad that she was back in the Compound, if only for a little while. For all its faults -and there had been a great many -it had been the first place that had felt like home in a very long time. She'd found strength here. A place to belong. People who had fought for her. And with things in the Bayou so...weird, lately...

Her stomach flipped. Werewolves had been travelling from all over, one following after the other to a city where their kind was persecuted and killed like super weird lemmings, all for a peek at the miracle child. Honestly, there were few highpoints to the business. Unless you liked to be gawked at like a zoo exhibition all day. Most of these guys didn't even have the decency to come introduce themselves or even say 'hi', just crept around, casting glances at her stomach which, at particularly paranoid times were downright unnerving.

She felt sick and elated in equal measure thinking of the day before. She took a sip of her drink -someone, Elijah, perhaps, or even Klaus, had had the waiters offer sparkling apple juice instead of champagne. It was the strangest, most delicious drink -sparkling apple juice or otherwise- which she had had yet, and that includeed some of the fancy ass bourbons she'd tried at Tyler's place. And those hadn't been cheap.

She caught a glimpse of Davina looking miserable and upset and so damned young, in a corner, and she felt a little guilty, suddenly, at having shattered her delusions. Marcel might have lied to the girl but he'd loved her like a father. She'd always had someone when he was around. It didn't look like she had anyone, now.

"You alright, ma'am?"

Another thing that felt weird, having her  _own_ pack, not just Jackson's wolves welcoming an outsider into their midsts, with the not so occasional gawker, lurking around, stealing creepers' glances at her belly. She fit in better than she had before but she still didn't...belong.

Eve, the first of her clan that she had met and Ansel, one of the few newcomers who  _had_  bothered to introduce himself, and a great loremaster of their kind, made it better, filling in at the corners, but the fact that the family she'd so desperately been searching for was made up of people who'd never fully trust her and would always, no matter how deep down, think of her as an outsider -and a guy who had a gigantic crush on a version of her he'd made up in his head- it made her feel...empty. When she didn't push it down, because of how very ashamed it made her feel to wish for vampires when she was among her own, she missed this place fiercely. The sudden arrival of Jimson and his folk, and her accepting them as her pack had changed everything. Suddenly she wasn't an alpha in name only, a relic of a bygone age of Werewolf Queens on the one hand, and a stranger with no clue as to their trouble on the other, all at the same time.

She had people of her own again. ( _Oh, god, she had people to let down again_.)

She swallowed and gave Jimson a nervous smile which morphed into a determined expression when she caught sight of Klaus' golden hair.

She jerked her chin towards Davina:

"Would you mind asking her to dance?" she asked him. "Girl looks miserable." 

"My pleasure," he said agreably.

She couldn't help smiling. Jimson had slid into the role of Beta artlessly and without a fuss -or any of that ridiculous fratboy posturing Jackson's boys had needed to, in the other Alpha's words "figure out the pecking order".

"Thank you."

He winked at her and disappeared in the crowd. She straightened up and smoothed over her dress before stalking over to the hybrid. Klaus turned to her a few seconds before she'd caught up to him, smiling that infuriating smile of his. Hayley rolled her eyes at the attitude.

"Ollie says you threw him out." Olliver's exact words had actually been: "That  _son of a bitch_  actually  _fucking_  asked me if I 'didn't have a  _Crawfish Boil_  to get to'!" but she figured preciseness was unecessary here.

Klaus' eyes sparkled with humor:

"Good evening to you, too, _vargynjur._ " She lifted an eyebrow, a little because she was curious about the new nickname but mostly to express how very unimpressed she was at the moment. "Come on," laughed the hybrid, "don't tell me he took offense. It was family business."

Hayley nearly growled, to his great amusement:

"That's not how allies work, Klaus," She faced him. Her dark eyes earnest and bold and fierce. He smiled in appreciation. "I want to know what he said," she snapped, already out of patience with his ususal games.

Klaus smiled indulgently:

"Naturally."

This gave her pause, and she took half a step back, watching him warily, a look he returned with frank, amused appraisal which made her scowl at him:

"Just like that?"

He laughed, and she was taken aback, the way she always was, by the way his laugh could sound so genuine and unstudied, how it could transform his whole face. Once, she'd been talking to Elijah and she'd seen the Brunette Original's entire face soften and lighten as though a weight had been taken off at the sound. She'd known then Elijah would forgive Klaus for daggering him, that he would always forgive him eventually. She'd never had anyone look at her like that, but she'd still recognized the expression. She'd still  _known_.

"What applies to Oliver does not apply to you, little wolf. You  _are_ family. Shall we?"

Hayley allowed his hand at the small of her back -allowed him to steer her to privacy. She had heard the sentiment before, of course, but never from Klaus. Not like that. Given his track record with family, it really shouldn't have warmed her the way it did.

Neither noticed Elijah's eyes on them.

"Well?" she asked as soon as they were alone. Klaus sighed, but he spoke willingly enough:

"As I'm sure  _Ollie_  has mentionned, I was not the first to ask Cary about the ring he once wore."

"Other people asked about it."

"Not...people. Just one person. A witch."

 

Three days before

 

"Who asked you about this?"

"I don't know." Cary was anxious. Not out of any sort of fear, simply the worry that he had done something wrong -something to cause a member of his family, of his  _pack_ , however new or unknown, any kind of prejudice. "A witch. Well she smelled like one, anyway. All she wanted was some old stories in exchange for some magic trick -smells like the wrong end of something really fuckin' dead that's even worse on a werewolf's nose, but it makes turnin' all but painless."

Back to the present

 

"So one of the witches is trying to..."

"Oh, no," said Klaus immediately, "this does not come from any French Quarter witch." 

Hayley blinked:

"And you would know this...how?"

To her surprise, the hybrid actually looked a little sheepish:

"Erm, well, a small issue has arisen. The witches are under new management."

The werewolf just stared, figuring there was no need to give any input and stop him while he was weirdly amenable. She suddenly remembered Ollie viciously whispering to Jackson.  _You didn't see 'im with that guy. It wasn't a vamp with a wolf. It was_ pack. _Gray Wolf_ pack _."_

"When you say new management..."

"It seems my Mother -among other family members, has risen from the dead. She is currently possessing the body of the last Harvest girl -Cassy. Leeching away at her existence. Some things never change."

"Wow," said Hayley, thoroughly disturbed, "she sounds lovely." She shook her head: "So what's the zombi count?"

Klaus nearly choked on his drink:

"The  _what_?"

She rolled her eyes:

"Your mother,  _among other family members_..." she mimicked his accent, making him snort.

"Thank god, I thought you were talking about actual zombies."

"Of course I wasn't..." She stopped. Thought. "Is that a thing?"

He winced, swallowing the whole drink down and pouring himself another:

"Yeah. Rare, thank god, and...thoroughly irrelevant at the moment...Or at least I hope they are -Kol always was tight with the Voodoos..."

Hayley considered that then decided to come back to it later:

"Kol?" she checked.

"...Was...or...is...I suppose, my youngest brother but one," confirmed the hybrid.

"So...he's back. Along with your mother and..."

"...Finn. The eldest. "

"Okay. And this tells you the witches aren't snooping around for moonlight ring info, how?"

"My mother  _created_  moonlight rings. She doesn't need to  _ask_. And she and Finn have the French Quarter witches under their thrall-ish Ewer Spider  & co control."

"Her and Finn? What about the voodoo-guy?"

Klaus opened his mouth, obviously gearing up for a smart aleck answer. He stopped. Closed it. Opened it again.

"Kol is... _If_  my mother is to be believed, Kol's whereabouts are currently unknown, and while, as a whole I wouldn't trust her to direct me to Bourbon Street -"

"This _is_ Bourbon Street," pointed out Hayley.

" _ _Exactly."  s__ aid the Hybrid dramatically. She rolled her eyes, lips twitching then frowned, searching his face:

"You believe her on this."

"Yeah," he admitted reluctantly.  "I do." 

"And you think...Kol...might be up to something."

Klaus laughed, it was a strange sound, bitter and upset, which she'd only heard once, when Elijah had confronted him about Tyler's bogus prophecy that he would use their child's blood to make an army of hybrids.

"Kol is always up to something," he said, dragging a hand through his hair and looking away. His eyes were strangely bright. 

"You love him a lot."

She was thankful when he didn't seem to realise how surprised she sounded. 

He shook his head and it was like going back in time, seeing herself at fourteen, lost and in denial. 

"It doesn't matter," he said, "we just have to adjust timing. Get these rings done before whatever plan Kol has been cooking up can get going. And his machinations did get us farther along. Cary already knew which stone the ring housed, and I was able to draw up a portrait of the witch aiding my brother from his description. He pulled out a portrait of a beautiful African-American woman in her mid-twenties, with blue eyes and a froth of dark gold Moana hair curling around her ears. I don't suppose you saw her while you were being held by the French Quarter witches?"

"No, but...oh, my god, I  _know_  her." 

"What?" 

Hayley nodded, disbelieving:

"She came to the Bayou, yesterday." 

"What did she do?" His eyes were hungry, she noted, in a way that had little to do with advancing their plans. She wondered what made Kol, of all his siblings, so damned special. "What did she say?"

"Not a lot," she thought, mostly the girl had been prejudiced against werewolves and remarcably insulting, though not necessarily on purpose, but... "Klaus...she knows how to make moonlight rings, already."

"What?"

"Yeah, I mean, not the kind you're talking about which means we're in control of the wolf at all time, but she made a ring for this little girl, it stopped her turning on the full moon. The wolves are really amped up about it."

"No wonder," muttered the blond, raking a hand through his short hair. He seemed to do that a lot, suddenly. She wondered if this was a sign that he was tense. "Did you have a look at it? What does it look like?" She blinked uncomprehendingly before it came to her: the ring. Right. Uhm...

"It's a mood ring from Claire's." When it became obvious he was quite unable to formulate a reply, she shrugged apologetically and asked: "Even if we do have time to circumvent your brother's plans, how are we supposed to find a witch who will agree to even make those rings?"

Klaus shook himself, and picked up a small gift wrapped in Chrismas red paper from his desk:

"My brother tells me that a little mercy goes a long way. Let's see how far his morals can get us."

**_When you got a job to do you got to do it well  
You got to give the other fella hell_**  

 

Elijah drank most of his glass of bourbon in one swig, barely cognisant of the party in full swing around him. He had already had quite a lot and was actually starting to feel a slight buzzing deep in his bones. He didn't usually drink so fast nor so much -he had not felt the need for it in centuries. Then again, whatever was happening here...

Francesca Correa, as slick and sophisticated as ever she was in a close fitted black dress showing off every asset at her disposal, all of which remarkable, slid in next him in one feline movement and smiled:

'We do good work, you and I.'

There was an invitation there which he briefly considered taking if only for the pale golden skin and the long silky dark hair.

( _Klaus' hand at the small of Hayley's back and the scent of sage and vervain, magic and silence in the air, if he focuses_.)

'So we do,' he answered instead, raising his glass slightly with an empty smile. If he caught the shadow of disappointment in her eyes he didn't let on.

She opened her mouth to say...whatever, but froze, dark eyes widening, a rare expression of naked shock on her face.

Elijah followed her gaze to the door and stilled, feeling a modicum of startled disbelief himself. He put down his glass and walked -perhaps too fast, though no one here would be shocked to the entrance. Father Kieran smiled at him, he looked a good deal better than when the vampire had last seen him, though there was more grey in his dark hair:

'Elijah,' he held out his hand to shake. It was free of the curse mark.

'Thank you for coming,' said the Original, astonishment tightly leashed.

'My pleasure.'

Before he could ask, a commotion drew everyone's eye. His brother had a hold of Joshua, Marcel's young acolyte, and was dragging him to the staircase. Davina was running behind him, protesting his manhandling of her friend, barely contained panic making her voice throb. Next to the young witch, an unfamiliar blond werewolf was keeping up easily, keeping himself close enough to get between the sixteen year old girl and Niklaus in a second and looking to Hayley for direction. She gave him a small nod and he inched just close enough to shield her with some effectiveness.

'Klaus,' said Hayley, her tone somewhere between pleading and warning. The hybrid smiled and patted her shoulder reassuringly.

The scene made Elijah frown: his brother showing Joshua so much mercy as to pardon him, and making so great and public an effort to obtain Davina's forgiveness -He had no doubt that Niklaus had chosen his moment very carefully. His mother's choice to humiliate and punish Davina by making certain the witch was overlooked when the gifts were doled out had been predictable -it was Ester's way. What his brother could mean by this show of good will, however...

His thoughts were interrupted by drumming as a marching band enterred playing their way to the center of the room where they stopped with a flourish. The leader smiled at the assembled guest:

'Happy Fête des Bénédictions from Marcel Gerard!' He called out, voice carrying across the room. Then in a synchronised move, all the players lifted knives and slit their own throats.

Elijah knew immediately that there would be no controlling the mess, dark veins and blood lust marked the face of every vampire present and prioritizing was needed.

He only just managed to get Hayley out in the chaos.

As soon as he had delievered the young wolf into Eve's capable hands, he headed for Algiers, for a much needed conversation with Marcellus. 

He found him with Thierry, the little rat who had left Rebekah for dead in Papa Tunde's, the powerful, disturbing witch who had fired the opening salvo of the witches' little war declaration earlier in the year.

Without the smallest effort, Elijah threw Thierry threw the brick wall with, admittedly, rare violence, but he could still see Hayley backing away from some vampire whose heart Niklaus had immediately ripped out. Marcel's bravado as he squeezed his heart had a modicum of truth to it unfortunately. If his brother would not see the young vampire dead for calling Mikael to hunt down down their family, it was quite possible that killing him  _would_ , in fact, forever alienate Niklaus. It was something he had once thought he could easily bear. He had been fooling himself, he knew that now. Thierry, however, had no such protection, and the death of his best friend was a far more lasting and painful punishment than death for Marcel. If he left behind a broken man, well, the vampire had broken their family, calling Mikael to New Orleans without any care for what might happen if their father actually caught any of them, and in particular Niklaus, the man who had raised him and loved him as his own son, and forcing them to flee, taking up the mantle and kingdom they had left behind. What Elijah would not have done to one of his own, he could easily do to an usurper -especially one who had so carelessly risked Hayley's life. Anxiety threaded through him and he found himself back to the Bayou without having actually decided to go.

Marcel's words echoed in his mind as he watched Hayley laugh, a little girl tucked against her leg, bright and golden in the fire light: " _Make sure Klaus tells you all about the secret meetings with the werewolves. That is, if he's still speaking to you once he knows that you killed me."_

Hayley and Klaus. 

He didn't know which hurt more.

"Elijah?"

He gave the blond woman a smile. There was a tentative friendship between them, and the knowledge that she would stake an Original without hesitation or a thought for repercussions in defense of Hayley made him like and trust her more than he had anyone in a very long time.

"Eve. How is Hayley?"

Eve smiled back at him:

"You don't need to keep coming out, Elijah. I'd tell you if something was wrong." She followed his gaze to Hayley, who was attempting to give little Dani a waterfall braid. "The girl has a natural gift for leading. She surprised everyone."

"Not everyone," murmured the vampire, next to her. Her face softened despite herself. He made it hard to dislike him, vampire or no.

"Do you want to join us?"

He shook his head. There was something vulnerable in him when he turned his gaze away from Hayley.

"What I want is for that girl to be happy. Don't..." his sighed, his mind obviously elsewhere - and somewhere none too pleasant, judging by the pained look in his eyes. "Don't tell her I was here."

She watched him walk away, looking strangely human, in the dark and felt the first stirrings of pity. He was so ancient and so alone, too fair in his dealings to help himself.

Elijah sighed, unable to enjoy the night. The walk wasn't as soothing as he had hoped it would be. He had been all too ready to confront his brother coming out of Marcel's loft, alive with righteous fury, but now the mere thought of the accusations Niklaus was certain to have at the ready, accusations concerning Hayley which he couldn't honestly refute, weighed on him like lead.

Before he could come to any sort of decision on the matter, his mind exploded with pain, his muscles seizing up. Through blurry eyes he saw Finn in his ridiculously blond witch form. With a nasty smirk on his lips, his eldest brother balled his hand into a fist and agony roared through the vampire's body, making him fall to his knee. Then he felt a stake slamming into his chest, caught the bloody end of it and a glimpse of his mother, blue eyed and pubescent at the edge of his vision before everything went black. 

 

**_But if this ever changin' world  
In which we live in  
Makes you give in and cry_ **

 

Marcel lifted the bottle in a toast to his deceased friend, anger sizzling within him:

"This is Thierry Vanchure. Mean-ass horn player, lover of feisty women -witch, vampire, and human alike." He sighed, and closed his eyes: "I rebuilt this city with him and he always had my back. Even when I screwed up and forgot to have his. And now all I can do is promise you this, T. I won't let you die in vain. I will take back our city."

"Really?"

Marcel turned around. The room had filled with vampires while he was too heartworn to notice. Vampires who had once followed without question. His people. Once and maybe again, and Diego perhaps more than most. Diego who had been one of his daywalker when New Orleans had been his, when vampires ruled, the blood always flowed and the party seemed like it would never end. Diego who had turned him and Thierry away only days before but who was now watching him earnestly:

"Going up against the Originals? For real, no backing down?"

"No backing down," said Marcel.  _His_  word. His oath.

As if to punctuate it Thierry surged up, coughing his guts out. 

"What?"

He looked around, confused and lost, his body burning with hunger.

The others gawked at him before their eyes flickered to the wall. It was bleeding, and the scent was so mouth-watering that they shuffled restlessly, full though they were, as the words formed.

_Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet._

"What does that mean?" asked Thierry, breathless. The taste of blood lingered in his throat, the phantom pain in his chest.

Marcel looked on darkly, eyes glittering and hard and unfathomable:

"It means there's a new Original in town."

 

**_Say live and let die  
Live and let die_ **


	7. Count Backward from Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FRANCESCA: Jeff was a fixture at my roulette table. Sometimes he was up, sometimes he was down. I absolved his family of the debt he owed out of the goodness of my heart. [Hayley glares at her skeptically, and Francesca shrugs] Feel free to sniff around. My hands are clean! [beat] And, I'd advise you to mind your manners. It's lucky you're still alive. You're the one the wolves all whisper about like royalty. If I was interested in hurting the wolves, you'd be my target. [She smiles] And, when I go after someone? I don't miss.   
>  -A Closer Walk with Thee

 

**_So knock me out again  
Count backwards from ten_ **

****

 

****

**_Two days before_ **

****

'Alright, boys, the woman called out,' grinning as she pulled the breaks on the pink rented beignet van, 'here we are: Crescent Pound'. She jumped out and went out to open the back door. 'Now on you go running around after sticks and howling and calling each other by fancy greek letters and whatever else it is you werewolves do.' 

Naturally, the brashly voiced sentiments attracted more than just a few unfriendly looks. The boys hurriedly poured out of the van, moving between the pathologically brassy witch and the advancing crowd. 

'Here, now, let's not all be unreasonable,' said Jimson, standing directly in front of her, hands held up conciliatorily. There was a casual friendliness about the blond which made you want to trust him. Made you want to heed his words.

'Unreasonable?' Oliver was far more built than the slight newcomer, and everything about him spoke of tightly leashed agression.

'Look,' said Jimson, in a calming tone, moving to hide her more completely. 'She don't have much of a brain to mouth filter but she's a good lady.'

'Don't hurt Lady,' said a soft, small voice, and a little girl appeared by the youth, pressing herself against his thigh. She couldn't be more than five or six, and they could tell, horror and nausea warring within them, that her curse was activated. Jimson's hand fell to her hair, patting her head softly:

'This here's Dani. Man comes out of a van, tells her he got candy. Now, her mama told her what to do so she runs, and he runs after her, grabs her, she's trying to hold on to this bench but she gotta let go. So she hits 'im with her elbow -hard as she can and right in the nuts just like her mama told her, and he bends in two, real violent, like, slips of some ol' take out on the floor. Head hits the side o' the bench. Neck snaps. She's five an' a half, ya'll know? Now Milady here, she's got some kinda spirit comin' after her baby, so she's looking for a Malraux -you know what they say 'bout Malraux blood. All she gets are dead ends. Now there's not a lot o' em left to start with, but all o' them seem to have disappeared or got themselves killed real recent like, and she keeps hearing about that one big business thing, Kingmaker, wiping out wolves. So she tries a location spell and she's blocked -by protection spells, like. So she gets pissed off, figures out which Kingmaker building's protected and goes in and she finds us all wired up in this torture lab they had us in. She don't like werewolves -one o' them killed her little brother, you know? But she still saves us and when she sees Dani and she gets it she puts her foot down. Says she too little, and if there's some ring as can protect psycho man killer vampires from the sun, she sure can come up with somthin' that can protect one little girl from the moon. S'why we waited before coming. Wanted to see if it worked.'

'Did it?'

'Yessir. She spent the night cuddlin' that plush Milady got'er from the Audubon Aquarium, eatin' pralines and watchin' Beetlejuice over 'n over.'

'Yes, exactly,' said the woman slipping through the projective wall of werewolf flesh, 'so now you can all swear your oaths to the queen, get knighted, chose an alphabet letter all in one day's work so I can pass down responsability and go watch Moana with my kid.' Off of their looks she shrugged: 'He likes the songs, okay? The make 'im laugh.'

'Is there a particular reason you want them with Hayley?' asked Jackson, frowning.

Jimson intervened before the girl could answer:

'Don't be offended, now. She don't know nothin' bout werewolves. She thinks Dani don't have a mother, Ms Lebonnaire be a Mother o' Wolves, match it up, and since we're not gon' leave that little girl...' he looked at Hayley apologetically: 'you don't have to take us.'

'I will, 'said Hayley. 'Gladly.' She leaned a little: 'hello, Dani.'

'Lady says you're a Queen and your baby's a magic princess.'

Hayley hid her surprise:

'Well that's very nice of her.'

'Don't worry,' said Dani, seriously. 'I won't let anyone hurt the princess.'

'Thank you, sweetie,' said the brunette, softly, hands coming up to her stomach.

****

 

**_Present Day_ **

****

 

There was a familiar painful sensation of his limbs waking up, like the sting of thousands of milling ants.

Had he been daggered?

...No. There had been...Finn...

Falling.

He was being...moved?

Bribes of speech filtered through the darkness.

... _fter a thousand years of backstabing and hypocrisy, you're as useless as ever -And come on, dude, lose a couple of pounds._

His arm was grabbed without care pulling a groan from his throat. Then there was a sharp pain in his heart and all was dark again.

He woke again briefly to slender fingers around his heart and magic as overwhelming and immense as the sea, rising and falling like the tides.

'...lijah. Elijah.'

Worried blue eyes swam in front of him.

'Ni..k...laus?'

Speaking felt like rubbing sand paper against his vocal cords. Klaus swore and pressed his wrist against Elijah's mouth. It didn't bring the nourishment of humain blood, but the relief was instant, so powerful his body seized with it. The experience was...different, too. His nerves thrummed. It felt...electric, powerful...Disturbingly intimate. Being bitten, he knew, was more intense, still, but Klaus' face didn't register any emotion, only watching with shadowed eyes as Elijah drank and drank.

 

'Did I fall asleep?' asked Elijah, mind slightly fuzzy, following the motion of Klaus wrist at the angle of his vision.

'Yeah, for a bit.'

The blond pulled his hand back in a lightning fast movement and it took a second for the mix of disappointment and absurd warmth to coalesce into any sort of sense. Klaus had been carding his hand through his hair, hadn't he? That was...new...

'How is he?'

A dazed smiled touched Elijah's lips.

'Hayley.'

She moved closer:

'Hey. How are you feeling?'

'You came back.'

'Oh,' she tucked her hair behind her ear, with a small, uneasy shrug: 'I 'don't know yet, but...with the attack...'

Elijah frowned:

'...attack?

Klaus and Hayley exhanged a charged glance.

 

 

**_'_ ** **_Set me on fire in the middle of the street_  
_Bend my knees and paint the concrete_  
 _The color of my bloody knuckles_  
** _Pulling splinters from the chapel door_

 

  

24 hours earlier

 

'That's it. Inhale and release,' said Eve, trying not to smile as Dani copied everything Hayley did. The little girl had yet to let go of her Sea otter plush, which she carried like a scepter as she looked at everyone who approached 'the Queen' with the true cynical mistrust of a royal guard.

Hayley groaned, adjusting her position.

'So, we're definite on the no epidural thing?'

Eve laughed warmly, helping her adjust the cushions under her back.

'As much as we'll ever be.'

She smiled at Hayley's expression:

'You need to relax, honey. Werewolves have been having babies out here since long before epidurals were even an idea in some science-man's head. You'll be fine.'

Hayley snorted but whatever she was about to say was cut off by -

'Klaus? What are you doing here?'

The blond eased into the shack, a flash of amusement at the scene before him briefly registering on his face, yet he looked...uncharacteristically grim. 

'I was looking for my brother, actually. I figured he might be around here, the sober, unmovable support of your therianthropically significant lamaze efforts...'

'Wait,' Hayley hitched herself up on her elbows, 'You don't know where Elijah is?' 

It probably -it  _really_  -shouldn't have been a surprise that Klaus didn't necessarily know the whereabouts of his grown up -and, age-wise, ten times super geriatric brother, but for Elijah and Klaus? It was weird. Weird...and worrying. Klaus sighed:

'I haven't seen him since he left the Fête des Bénédictions to bring you here.'

'He went to Algiers to confront Marcel,' Hayley realized, her voice becoming urgent with worry, 'Do you think -'

'Calm down,' said Eve, her warm voice filled with authority, as she helped Hayley sit up. 'He came back after that,' she gold Klaus. Hayley's head whipped around to look at her in surprise. Just...genuine surprise, Eve noted. She's expected her to be a little pleased, maybe. Klaus, she saw, had noticed that too. 'Just to check up on you,' she told the brunette, before turning back to the hybrid : 'He left around...1:30, I think? He didn't tell me anything but I assumed he was heading home.'

'Yes,' said Klaus grimly, 'He would have been.'

 

 

Kieran packed up the last of the remains of his stay in the attic, and went to close the box before stilling. Sean's picture was right there. The earnest blue eyes, the brillant smile. He closed his eyes. He had tried to save his nephew. He had tried so hard he had come to overlook how dangerous the hex had made him. Innocents had died. But that had proven something, or...he had thought it had. He picked up the file he had brought with him against everything his father had ever taught him -the first document was a copy of an entry from a personal journal from the early days of the war the human faction had waged against the Voodoo Queens a hundred years prior:

_Deirdre Page was marked by Tara Auregan, a witch of the_  Vieux Carré _affiliated with the Voodoo Queens. Auregan used_ _the Crucis Rosarium, an_ object maudit _of the worse sort._

_A member of our congregation, Moira, a powerful practitionner, was able to enlighten us as to the provenance of the object and to reassure us that the Voodoo Queens had not the secret of creating such devilry. She told us that this cursed thing was made nearly a decade ago by a Triad composed of two witches and one vampire. According to Moira those three people, Mary Alice Claire, Astrid Malchance and Kol Mikaelson created dozens of these objects. This one obviously has a terrible effect on the mind and soul, infecting them with a dark rot and pushing them to commit the greatest of sins._

_Whatever means of interrupting this process, of undoing_ any _magic wrought by the many similar objects they created together, has disappeared with them and no witch or vampire has yet been capable of retrieving it._

The ring of his phone pulled him out of his thoughts. The caller ID indicated a masked number. He pressed the answering button and raised the phone to his ear, shoving the file down in the case taping the box.

'Father Kieran?' asked a softly accented voice at the end of the line. 

 

 

'Come on, Klaus,' said Hayley, frustrated, 'don't act like you don't have this pretty much figured out, already. Who do you think has him?' 

Klaus lifted an eyebrow, then jerked his chin at her insistantly vibrating phone. 'Maybe you should take this, love. It's been going on a while.'

She glared, picking up the phone belligerently, intent on disconnecting the call, but the name on the screen gave her pause:

'It...Cami...' she said, confused. It wasn't that she didn't like Cami -what she knew of her she  _did_  like. It was more of a case of not being all that familiar with the woman. Their paths had really only very briefly crossed before -Heck, she hadn't even remembered the blond had her phone number. She looked askance at Klaus who'd pulled out his phone lightning fast. 

'Take it,' he said urgently.

Hayley nodded:

'Cami?'

'Oh, thank god!' God, she'd forgotten how beautiful Cami's voice was, she thought, with unexplaible irritation. 'Listen, my uncle had people keep an eye on Francesca Correa. A man who owes a lot of money to her Casinos has been purchasing massive amounts of explosives and wolfsbane and a traffic enforcement camera got him speeding half a dozen minutes ago. He's heading your way.'

They managed to evacuate most of the pack -something which went a lot faster when it was made very clear to Klaus that Hayley was not going  _anywhere_  until her people were safe. The children and a large number of people were gone when the biker appeared and Klaus, at this point in a particularly foul mood, just threw him off into the lake, bike and all, before he could open his mouth.

'Will you come with me  _now_?' he ground out. Then everything exploded around them.

 

 

'Hayley? Haley, can you hear me?'

Hayley stared, uncomprehending. What was Cami doing here?

'What -?'

She blinked -just blinked- but when she opened her eyes Cami was gone and Klaus' face was hovering over hers, instead, then there was a bloody wrist at her mouth and her throat was full of copper. It took a few seconds for the world to come back into focus, fog clearing out of her brain and, mercy of mercy, for the high, strident noise stabbing through her mind to cut  _off_.

For a second there was fear, paralysing fear. Klaus gave her an unhappy, accusing look, but grumpily volunteered: "The baby's fine."

"You don't know that!" Her voice was completely hysterical, she noted in some small, detached part of herself, feeling as if she were watching the scene unfold, watching herself losing it -and at  _Klaus._ But this wasn't him, was it? He'd wanted to get her out of here, her and the baby. Out of danger. She'd been the one who...who...

She shook her head blindly.

'Don't make me slap you,' said the blond hybrid, looking supremely unamused, as he pulled her up. 'I can hear her heartbeat. She's fine, okay?'

And, miraculously, it was. Because she knew that if something was wrong with the baby, he'd be off killing anyone Francesca Correa had ever  _met_ , and, right now, that was exactly what she needed. She frowned slightly, some fuzzy remembrance floating in:

'Was Cami here?'

'With company,' said Klaus, grimly. Hayley looked around, confused as to why paramedics and Cami's uncle would piss him off before catching on to what -or rather  _who_ \- he was looking at: there, with her hand over Kim's chest. The witch. Cami had brought Kol's witch.

'What is she doing to Kim?' she asked, urgently, 'Hey!' she called out, her voice carrying across the clearing as she stalked over to them, 'What are you doing to her?'

The witch raised her hands slowly, like this was some saturday night cop show:

'Easy, now, darling. It's just your standard healing spell, is all.'

'Hayley,' said Kim softly, propping herself up on one hand, and looking at her with large questioning eyes, liquid raven locks pulling over a shoulder on red blotched skin which was smoothing out more every second, 'She...she healed my chest.'

'Oh,' said Hayley, wind taken out of her sails. She rubbed her temples. 

Why couldn't things just be simple with Originals? Why did you always have to question every damned thing they did. Were they helping? Or pursuing their own agenda? Or both? For fuck's sake, just one straightforward line of action out of any of them, now that would be the day!   

The girl looked amused and she had the eerie impression she could read her thoughts. It was something she'd been spared from so far -except for Elijah, maybe, who was in a weird ass league of his own - and one she would have been more than glad to be spared indefinitely.

'Look, I just -'

Hayley saw the girl's eyes widen in alarm; saw her throw out her hands, but it took her long seconds to realize what was happening. 

'Oh, my god,' said Kim, suddenly much farther away, lowering the arm she'd thrown up for protection. Hayley looked up at Klaus -had he always been this tall? He didn't seem this tall from further away. He had a day old stubble, she hadn't realized that before, she paused, staring at her hand. It had gone up to his face and it was now sort of hovering, not quite touching. Klaus had gone very still, his eyes a molten gold. Wait, he'd  _moved_  her, moulding his body to hers, bracketing her face protectively with his arms -that noise. That ringing noise screeching through her ears, the unsteady ground. More explosions, except...there was no screaming, no destruction, no...

'If you're quite  _done_ ,' snapped the witch, her british accent and scathing tone eerily Rebekah-like, and Hayley realised that the bombs  _had_ gone off, they'd just... _stopped,_  like someone had hit pause on the freaking TiVo, fire and schrapnel freeze-framed, just waiting to go off again.

'Will you just bloody  _sod off!_  And take Fido and the rabble with you!' Her voice was snappish but, most of all, it was strained and it jolted Hayley into action:

'Everyone get out, now, now, now! Come on!'

The call was taken up by Kim, and Jimson a little further down, and Jackson near the lake. 

 

 

The girl gave them a good ten minutes before she started bleeding, first her nose, then her ears...then it was her eyes. 

Hayley saw the flinch a second before it happened:

'Klaus!'

Then everything was just noise, and blood and pain.

She heard Cami's voice before anything else.

'Lettie!' She coughed hard. ' _Lettie_!'

Klaus winced. Cami's friendship with Kol's little plaything was...inconvenient, to say the least. And he didn't half like the immediate concern on Hayley's face as she made her way over, either.

'She's alright.'

'Klaus,' breathed Haley, a little too relieved to his taste. Cami was next to him as fast as her mortal legs could carry her.

The hybrid carried the witch in his arms, barely concious, but unhurt.

'Cami,' she mumbled. 'Y'okay?' 

'I'm fine.'

'And the pregnant girl? And the...' she made a motion with her hand, and it took Klaus a second to realise she was imitating a swishing tail.

'We're fine,' Hayley said, torn between gratitude and annoyance. 'Everyone's fine.'

'...That's good,' she mumbled, sounding quite genuine, her head rolling onto Klaus' shoulder.

'Is she okay? Should she sleep?'

Klaus looked the girl over.

'Magical exhaustion.'  _Barely._ Her heartbeat had returned to a steady rythme seconds after she'd let go, and she'd stopped bleeding. A cereal bar and the girl could have another go -at magic his  _mother_  couldn't have cast. Where had Kol even found this one? 'It's not unlike a concussion, so we should get her confortable and wake her every few hours.'

'I'll do it,' said Cami immediately, moving to tell her uncle.

'You're taking her to the compound?'

'Where else? Here?'

Hayley winced. The place looked like a battlefield., and despite Klaus' actions, and the witch's, there were too many deads. Not that any number wouldn't have been too many. She wondered where her people would go. If she should...

'Hey,' said Cami, 'my uncle says we'll house as many as we can fit in the Church and we have some warehouses by the docks, that were kept scrupulously secret from Francesca. It won't be the lap of luxury, but they'll have somewhere to go -medical attention, enough beds to go around. Food, too. Your friend Eve says she'll keep you informed, and that Dani is with her and some guy called Jimson, and  _he_  says that he and...Hansel? can man the fort until this is sorted and if you need him, his phone's fine, so you can call and he'll make sure to be on the look out so he doesn't miss it.' 

'Thanks,' said Hayley, a little overwhelmed and absolutely bewildered by all the efficiency and support.

'We're going to the compound,' Klaus informed the blond woman, ripping his eyes away from the with sleeping in his arms. She was, of course, beautiful -Kol being ever the vainglorious twerp -but there was something else that caught his eye, something he couldn't quite make out. He wondered if she didn't have some sort of enthralling enchantment on her features -he'd always suspected Kol had convinced some witch or other to provide him with something the like, although he'd never found any dark object to prove it.

'It looks like your brother's marching orders are to be helpful so far,' said Hayley quietly, falling into step with him as they made their wqy to the car. 'That's good, right?'

It was _true_ , at least. Whatever plan Kol had for the werewolves obviously required for them to be alive and well, including Hayley, child and all -the witch's words came back to him ' _And the pregnant girl?'_  Hayley especially, even. Something that wasn't precisely comforting where Kol was concerned. Still, it was more than could be said for other members of his family. He sighed, stowing the girl in the back of the car catching himself at uncharacteristic gentleness  _what the ever lasting -?_ He shook his head:

'I never thought this attack had anything to do with Kol, anyhow. This...This is not his style.' 

If Kol had wanted to slaughter werewolves, he would have done it himself -very hands on, his little brother. All about the DIY. 

'Still, you realize that the likeliness of this happening just as Elijah has been taken, thus splitting my focus, _and_ being incidental is...'

He saw the fury and passion in her, but no surprise:  

'If your goddamned mother thinks she can slaughter my people as a  _distraction_  and get away with it, she's got another thing coming. We're getting Elijah. Today.'

Klaus nodded harshly, starting the car. As much as he disliked leaving the witch unsurpervised at the compound, priorities were what they were, and his mother had, as usual, made it quite obvious that she was the most twisted thorn in his side. He didn't bother to suggest Hayley stayed behind. He hadn't learnt  _much_  about dealing with women in a thousand years with Rebekah, but he wasn't dim, either. They dropped the two in the compound, tucking the witch into a bed, and getting Cami situated in a comfortable chair next to it, in Davina's former room, as it happened -apparently it was the designated space for random, unnaturally powerful witches his family members had picked up god only knew where. _W_ _hatever_. Klaus and Hayley then made their way to Lafayette for a well deserved confrontation, and were met with an unexpected complication.

'Seriously?' gawked Hayley.

The entire cemetary had become restricted to the public, with the Lycée, in particular, corded off and swarming with cops. Klaus frowned and concentrated, trying to hone in on someone voicing relevent information:

'Crime scene,' he relayed to Hayley, 'Two bodies, a sixteen years old girl, dark haired blue eyed, name -it's my mother,' he desisted in the pointless exercise. 'It's already been cleared, which means they're at the police morgue. Let's go.'

 

 

'Aw, Geezus,' groaned  Nhân-gia, 'Don't do that at...' he checked the clock. 'Eleven in the morning? Huh, okay, scratch that. What can I do for you guys?' He blinked, suddenly, something niggling at his mind. The two weren't either cops or medical staff he'd ever seen down there, but trainies, volunteers and clergy weren't exactly rare. Plus the lawyers or insurances wanting evidence of malpractise from...anyone. Everyone. And the transportation blokes from various funeral homes. It was busier than people assumed down here. Still, he frowned, looking at the blond man:

'Have we met?'

'Oh, yes,' said the man flippantly, 'You can remember that, now.'

The woman blinked:

'You have?' she asked, confused. She was brunette, gorgeous, and heavily pregnant.

The man made a 'whatever' gesture with his hand as the doctor's face lit up with recognition -an expression quickly replaced by a more subdued one as his stomach started swimming with a confusing mess of fear and arousal.  _Right. Creepy hot guy._  Well, that explained why he'd had to go to a  _Santero_ three times in the last few weeks. 

'Tell me about them,' the man said, his pupils doing that thing which  _should_  be attributed to drugs, but was obviously more like some kind of mind control. 

'Cassy Ruelle, 16, Kaleb Westphall, 19 year old, suspect in a multiple murder case. I'd say it's closed now, except people I pronounced dead seemed to get  _remurdered_ with alarming frequency. Take her for exemple,' he said waving his hands at the dead teenage girl. 'She died thirteen months ago. And also today, apparently. Because...That's a thing, now. Either everyone in this place has a twin or this is a video game where everyone starts again from last fail and we just haven't realized it yet.' He paused, thought. 'I wonder what that game is called.'

Klaus cleared his throat and he shook himself:

'Right. Sorry. Uh, both died between midnight and two A.M. sensibly at the same time. Cause of death for both is cervical fracture -broken neck,' he translated off of Hayley's look. Cassy Ruane had occult imagerie carved into her forehead, it's a vévé, a symbol. I checked it out, and it looks like it stands for the vodou equivalent of Elllegua, guardian of Crossroads.' 

'Vodou?' repeated the man, slowly.

'Looks like your mum's kidnapping got highjacked,' remarked the pregnant girl.

Nhân-Gia looked between the two of them, wishing he had a redbull:

'Should I go on?' The man nodded. 'Kaleb Westphall ingested a large dose of aconite herb.'

'So they poisoned him first?' asked the girl, sounding confused, now.

Nhân-Gia shook his head:

'The aconite was administered post-mortem.'

She blinked:

'That seems like overkill.'

The blond man snorted:

'Only because you haven't met him.'

'Actually, the specifics suggest it was an attempt to save him.'

'Elaborate,' the man ordered.

'O...k...Hm, the herb used and its preperation are very specific, it's processed daughter root of Aconitum Carmichaeli Debx, it's the herb used in Traditional Chinese Medicine and its variants. In TCM, this preparation is the leading one for restoring yang, to the point that, to this day, many herbalists believe that it can  _actually_  wake up the dead. Not entirely inaccurate on the face of it -it's a very strong cardiotonic. I was actually a bit rusty on the particulars, so I had to borrow a book from my dad -he has an apothecary in Versailles -and I googled the rest. Now, according to the Chinese Medical Dictionary, the dose shouldn't exceed 9 grams due to its highly toxic nature, but there are some Schools which extend the limits to dozens of grams, if not more than a hundred, like what we have here. There is probably some additional substance either on his skin or in his blood but I wasn't able to find it, and with limited funding, I'm very unlikely to.'

The blond blinked, then blinked again:

'What makes you believe it then?'

Nhân-Gia jerked his thumb over his shoulder where dozens of blue butterflies were flitting about in a large lamplit aquarium.

'Limenitis arthemis butterflies, all of them blue in coloring. They were all over the body, but they didn't touch the girl, even though the two were laid out next to each other, and none strayed from the body.'  

'Limenitis.' Haven, in ancient Greek, Klaus tilted his head to the side: 'I do believe you may be right about there being a failed attempt to save the boy's life.' The question was, who had they been trying to save? Finn? Or Kaleb Westphall? He sighed. Irrelevant, either way:

'It seems cutting out the middle man was a mistake.' He looked around: 'Hayley?'

'Hm, yeah, that chick left ages ago, dude,' said the doctor, looking vaguely embarassed.

'Forget about this,' Klaus compelled, going through his contact list.  _How the hell had she sneaked away without him hearing?_ 'Where the hell  _are_  you?' he raged at her recorded message.

 

 

'Hayley Marshall,' said Francesca Correa, smiling guardedly at the sight of the werewolf sitting in waiting on her porch, she gestured discretely at the man behind her. 'I don't suppose you're here, because you want a new friend?'

'I don't count terrorists as friends.'

'Wow,' said the woman with a forced laugh, 'I have been accused of a lot of things, but this...this is new. I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this meeting short, so, goodnight.'

'Please,' said Hayley, grabbing her advancing bodyguard and smashing his head into the birdbath with more violence than she'd exhibited since she was a teenager out in the Appalachians. 'Stay.'

Francesca swallowed hard, but pasted a smile on her face.

'I heard about that tragedy at the Bayou. Awful, really. But you can check around as much as you like, my hands are clean. Now if you don't mind -' but she hadn't taken two steps before she fell to her knees, an unearthly scream ripping out of her. A man came down the way, his hand extended:

'I mind,' he said, walking around to face the woman, only sparing a brief glance for Hayley before returning his gaze to Francesca's face. 'We haven't met. I'm Vincent,' His hand closed into a fist and Francesca's scream cut off, panic surging into her brown eyes, hands half-rising to her chest. "That was my girl, bleeding in that bayou so those wolves could get away from those bombs you set." His fist made a jerky motion and Francesca's mouth opened in a voiceless scream. "The woman who carried my  _child_."

He lowered himself so he was face to face with her.

"Now, you have plans, Francesca  _Guerrara_ , and you're gon' tell me all about them, or I  _swear_  on all the spirits that walk this City you'll be remembering this moment  _fondly_ before I'm done with you."

 

 

**_Cause oh how far do you think I can go  
Beneath before you won't follow me there_ **

 

 

Present time

 

Elijah coughed harshly and Klaus offered his wrist once more.

'Another witch,' the dark haired Original rasped out when he had had his fill.

'Yes,' murmured Klaus, 'for people nearing extincting they seem to be multiplying and growing more powerful astonishly fast.'

Elijah reclined onto the pillows. He was starting to look better now, but the time it had taken for the last of the grey tinge to disappear from his face worried Klaus exceedingly, even if he was pretending otherwise, and if  _Klaus_  was worried then how the hell was  _Hayley_  supposed to feel? 

'Are they that powerful, really?' 

The blond growled:

'I haven't seen the man in action as  _someone_  decided to go off on her own.'

Hayley snorted:

'Yeah, go ahead and pretend you're not just pissed cause you missed the big reveal and Francesbitch getting hers.'

'Well, it's not helping my mood,' conceded Klaus, lips twitching, she rolled her eyes fondly and Elijah watched the byplay in bemusement, a sliver of dread at the pit of his stomach.

'The witches?' he chided gently.

'The girl is...powerful,' said Klaus, curiously accomodating. 'We are talking Davina Claire,  _pre_ -harvest completion and on a rampage.'

'Well,' said Elijah, this time with very real and very justifiable dread: 'I suppose if there is a witch with that kind of power, anywhere, Kol was bound to find her.'

Klaus tilted his head, then suddenly smiled, making his brother blink at the unfiltered brilliancy -potentially dangerous brilliancy -of it:

'...That's not all he's bound to do,' he said with sudden and vivid cheerfulness, nearly bouncing up. 'Time to stir up that particular hornet's nest and remind our brother of our existence.' 

Elijah blinked and got up, somewhat more slowly than usual, but, of course, given who and what he was, that meant little altogether. He and Hayley descended quickly after his brother and he finally got a look at the two witches, the girl was willowy, with a short froth of curly gold hair in a bob around her head and her eyes were a familiar blue. The man was African American, trim, with short hair and high cheekbones in a thin face, his skin was a particularly dark and attractive color and given Hayley's narrative of his attack on miss Correa -or  _Guerrarra_ as seemed to be the case, he was surprised to see that, although obviously infatuated, the two were standing at a respectable distance, both apparently too pubescently uncertain of their reception to cross it. 

 

Klaus came down the stairs with all the smug nastiness of someone about to spread the pain and adressed the man: 

'Did you know the mother of your child had an  _alliance_  with my brother?' Well he didn't drag it out, Hayley figured, wincing in empathy, you had to give him that.

'Niklaus,' reproofed Elijah. Unsurprisingly, he was ignored.

'You gotta give it to Kol, he knows his way when it comes to...' his mouth opened in a leer '... _allying_  with beautiful witches.'

'Kol,' said Vincent. His expression was one of stunned, painful disbelief. 'Kol Mikaelson.'

'Vincent,' said Lettie. She looked completely at a loss, and there was something very stark about her expression, nearly adolescent, like she was getting her heart broken for the first time.

He started to laugh, a bitter, cold sound.

_'_ _Kol. Mikaelson_ _.'_ He repeated.

'Vincent,  _please_.'

He turned on his heels and left.

'Oops,' said Klaus cheerfully. 'Now love,' he said at the witches look, 'Don't blame me for your own doings. And tell my brother if you will -'

He didn't the attack coming - _Elijah_  barely saw it at all. One second Niklaus was gloating most unbecomingly, the next he had gone through what looked like...two, no,  _three_  rooms -three  _walls_ , that was, and he was looking...rather the worse for wear. Hardly conscious, in fact.

'Go to hell, Nik,' the witch said, then she was gone. Before the display, ELijah would have immediately assumed it to be a cloaking spell, a feat of magic impressive in itself, but he couldn't but feel that the girl was genuinely... _gone_. Transported to another place. An impossible thing, and yet...

He blinked at the unexpected presence when Cami stood up:

'My apologies, I had not...'

'Save it, I'm leaving,' said Cami bluntly, before looking at Hayley cooly: 'How many lives do you think she saved in that Bayou today? How hard do you think you might have landed if she hadn't stopped that bomb? Hard enough to lose your child?' Hayley shifted, looking incredibly guilty. Cami turned back to Elijah 'You can tell Klaus to go drink somewhere else; Rousseau's closed.' Then, with an efficient hitch of her charming handbag on her shoulder, she walked out. 

 

Cami sighed when she got the recorded message for the third time in a row. 'Hey, Lettie, look I'm...' She trailed off, remembering Lettie talking about her widowed brother in law while fiddling with her hair, blue eyes bright and full of passions murkier than the Mississipi after heavy rainfall, about the baby boy she was holding off on drinking caffeine and booze for because breastfeeding was important, and she winced: 'I know you probably don't want to talk to me, right now, I just...' She should have known better than to trust Klaus with anyone she considered a friend. It wasn't like she, of all people could possibly ignore the way he treated others. 'I need you to know that I...I'm  _so_ sorry. If you need anything, I...' 

_Your message has been recorded. If you wish to save it, press 1. If you wish to record it again..._ She pressed one and threw the phone on the couch, burrying her head in her hands.

How many friends had she made since Sean had died? ( _Three.)_ How many had she made  _not_  bonding over being manipulated by vampires and the torturous retrieval of her compelled memories? One. Just one.

The bell rang and she thought that if it was Klaus she might actually find out if she would have been strong enough to shove that knife in his heart after all. It wasn't Klaus.

'Can I stay here?' asked Lettie. Her eyes were wide and she looked like she was just...incredibly confused about how much pain she was in.

'Of course,' said Cami immediately, wrapping her arm around her.

 

 

Nhân-Gia yawned, extracting himself from the office the size of an cupboard he'd been attributed in the basement.

He really needed that redbull, he thought, vaguely, then frowned. There was something off about the thought, but he couldn't think what exactly. Had he wanted a redbull at some point today? He hadn't...He froze.

The key was on the wrong peg. The key was never on the wrong peg. He looked between the door leading up and the one leading to the Morgue. Checked the key again. Definitely on the wrong peg.  _No one_  ever put the key on the wrong peg. Nope. He picked in up and let himself into the Morgue uncertainly, hoping this wasn't like last year when that creepy ass couple had wanted to do it next to a corpse. The place was silent as...well, you know. 

'Is anybody in here?' 

He nearly fell on his ass when he caught size of something immense moving at the corner of his eyes but it was just the butterflies who'd suddenly gone off. They were swarming like crazy. Was this normal behavior? Wait, one of the slabs was out. Oh Christ, it really was the creepy perverts, again. He advanced carefully:

'Hey, I'm telling you now...' 

He paused, feeling dumb as hell. Kaleb Westphall was the only one there. What was the guy doing out? Not exactly the way to keep a body fresh. What the fuck had Shona even been up to? He froze. What the hell was on the guy's throat? Was it a bruise? Appearing just now? The skin had gone dark blue. He hesitated, but it was late, damn it, and he was meeting...that hot dude with the tattooes. Todd or Kyle or...one of those one syllable names, anyway. He'd see about this, just...Tomorrow. He grabbed the slab to push it back in.

Kaleb Westphall grabbed  _him_.

 

_**Down to the center of a black hole  
A ruined sinner and a wasted soul** _


	8. Exhibit A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FREYA: [anxiously] A sigil is a complicated magical symbol, weaponized and condensed to its most potent form. If I combine the right elements, we'll have a chance at stopping Lucien, and if I don't...  
> -The Devil comes here and sighs
> 
> VINCENT: This is the history of the city. This is the ebb and flow of violence and tragedy (...) this is Madame LaLaurie, this is The Axeman. I mean the list goes on and on and on and on and on and sometimes it's hidden, but if you know what you're looking for, right, there's always a sign it's The Hollow. And when it does bubble up, it always do so in a pattern of four.  
> ELIJAH: What does it want?  
> VINCENT: It's a ghost, it wants access to this world. So it reaches out and it whispers to the desperate.  
> \- Bag of Cobras

  
  
_I'm splittin' atoms, spittin' flames  
Bringin' change, things will never be the same_  
  
  
If he'd been provided with a protocol for the timeline of returning personal possessions to dead people, he'd failed to acquaint himself with it, figuring it would be useless. Shows what you know when you're finished with your internship and you think you're the man.  
The blond, not-dead-anymore dude, took a sip from his pecan praline coffee.  
Nanh Gia swallowed nervously, and wondered why this guy, who looked like he could be coming down from a binge and walk-of-shaming back to Loyola housing in another minute -minus the cerulean pigmented skin over his throat, was so creepy -and why all of this felt so fucking familiar. Like, if he'd been in this kind of weird ass scary situation, he'd have remembered it, right?  
The blonde blinked under his scrutiny and got up from the chair he'd been occupying, making Nânh Gia all but jump out of his skin. He took a hesitant look at the mirror. Kaleb's youthful, handsome face stared back at him. He swallowed. He was still himself, was still...Finn, that was. But everything felt...different. As though he was no longer standing on solid ground. He stared at the blue mark across his throat and touched it tentatively and impressions crashed into him, all at once.  
_The cold floor of the crypt, warm lips on his brow,_  
_'I'll make it up to you, darling, I promise. Every second.'_  
And something else, at the same time, somewhere else. Here. _The cold against his back was metal, the slender fingers digging into his throat, the flare of magic. 'Nilakantha.'_  
He came back to himself when the door slammed.  
'Hey,' called out a wiry man. He was thin faced and blue eyes and his dark hair were in disarray. 'What's that memo I got about needing to reevaluate the particulars of the Westphal/Ruane case? Hi,' he told Finn distractedly before pausing, and taking a second, closer look.  
'Twin brother?' he asked the medic uncertainly.  
'Nope,' said Nânh Gia bluntly.  
The man blinked, blinked again. Blinked some more:  
'O...kay...What?'  
The doctor snorted:  
'Yeah, you should have been here when he woke up. Detective Kinney, meet Kaleb Westphal. As you can see, he's outgrown his corpse status.'  
'Outgrown,' Kinney repeated softly. 'So he wasn't...really dead.'  
'Oh, he was dead all right,' snorted Nânh Gia. 'Really, very dead.'  
'Except now he's not.'  
'Despite the total medical impossibility. But that's alright. I'm over it.'  
Kinney swallowed a smile. The Doc was always good for a laugh.  
'Impossible how?'  
'Uh...Impossible like a broken neck? Impossible like really, seriously 100 per cent not happening. Unless, you know, zombi.'  
Kinney gave him an unimpressed look:  
'You been goin' on ghost tours, Nânh Gia?'  
'What for? I got two grand-mothers o' my own who have scarier tales -More accurate one, too. One of them took me to see a guy who bled a chicken on me, actually. Twice. Not even that long ago.'  
'Should I file for animal cruelty?'  
'Only if you're done taking fried chicken to the Parades. Anyway, I don't do ghost tours. It's all a bunch o' hooey to my mind -at least I think it is. I _have_ been watching Resident Evil, but that's a whole different thing.'  
Kinney gawked at him:  
'You watch that thing in a Morgue?'  
'I have a strong constitution,' said Nânh Gia with mock self importance, 'Besides,' he shrugged, 'I get bored.'  
Kinney shook his head fondly:  
'You're a crazy person.' He glanced at the blond who'd sat back down and was now looking at them and sipping from a Community Coffee cup, eyes a little too scrutinizing for comfort. 'Seriously, though...'  
The medic shrugged again:  
'I don't know what to tell you man. Guy was dead nearly 24 hours. Brain damage from lack of oxygene is ten.'  
'Ten hours?'  
'Ten minutes.'  
Kinney took a second to process this.  
'You're kidding?'  
'No,' said Nânh gia plainly. 'So...Can he get his stuff back or not, 'cause he's wearing my change of clothes and that's a Varvatos tee-shirt.'  
After a bit of fumbling, Finn -or, rather, from the point of view of the police, Kaleb- was back in his clothes and had gotten back his wallet and keys and after 10 minutes in the interrogation room -('Did you see who attacked you?'  
'No.'  
'Can you think of anyone who wanted you or miss Ruane dead?'  
'No.'  
'What about the massacre from a year and a half ago, do you think it has something to do with that?'  
'I don't know.'  
'Do you know anything?'  
'I just pulled back on the clothes I died in. I know I need a shower.) -he was let go. His mind was working a thousand miles an hour as he walked down the street. Kol's words on a loop in his mind. _I'll make it up to you._ What the hell did he mean by that? _Darling_. Kol never called him darling, never. _Every second_. What the hell- His step faltered. The whispers weren't in his mind anymore but all around him. Indistinct voices soughing, the entire street had been thrown into a gloom as he puzzled over his brother's words, and an ominous wind was stirring. His lips twisted in annoyance.  
'Really, Kol?'  
The wind grew cold as bone and frost started climbing on the wall. Behind him, a door slammed. He whirled around and something unseen threw him against the wall, holding him up above the floor for long minutes. It came around his throat then dropped him with a hiss. Finn's hand came up to the blue mark. The contact, brief as it had been, had nearly crushed his trachea. Would have done. Kol's mark had protected him. He stood with difficulty, more confused than ever and he saw it manifest itself. Just a moving reflection against the walls at first, a gleam in the windows and then it was there in truth, luminous blue tendrils the color of aquamarine twining together until there was a large ball of blinding blue light right across from him. He clenched his fist, whispering the words of a revelation spell:  
' _Revele votre vrai soi. Revele votre vrai soi. Revele votre vrai soi._ Show yourself!'  
Pain shrilled through his mind and he screamed, clutching his head. He slipped and tried to catch himself on the wall but it was slick with blood. He took a few step back, blinded by the pain, his bleary eyes only just making out the sigil formed on the wall by the blood. Jormüngandr. Then everything went black.

 

 _The Palace is haunted, corruption and bloodshed_  
_La Maison La Laurie_  
_The Corpses now rotten, but never forgotten_  
_The surgeon of New Orleans_  
  
  
Vincent sat on the steps in the grey and purple dawn, his anger fueled by betrayal and...He shook his head. In his mind, he could still hear the bloodcurling screams shaking the room, could still see Eva, as she nearly threw off two burly witches. They'd pushed her back down, her face slick with sweat, and she'd started talking, her voice strong and nasty and rising with every word, a mix of vicious insults and a language he'd never heard. The room had shaken like another hurricane was blowin' in.  
'Vincent?' Angelique stared at him, confused. Her corkscrew curls like gold red silk, her pale caramel skin flushed as she hurried up the driveway to him. 'How long you been out here? You know it isn't safe.' She caught sight of his expression and stilled: 'So you finally got your head out of your ass, did you?' She pulled out her keys. 'Well. I reckon we should do this inside, then.' He watched as she put some water to boil and signed herself before her altar. It was a real one, a real big one, set within the unusued fireplace. It looked like she hadn't cleared out her nativity scene, with all the little plaster statues of the Saints and the cloth of gold, and the candles. She picked something off of it and handed it to him.  
'Go on,' she said. It was a daguerrotype, showing an octaroon, decked out in her sunday best, with a little girl on her knees looking straight out at you from the picture. It was impossible to tell the color of her eyes from the black and white daguerrotype, but they weren't dark eyes.  
He opened his mouth to ask.  
'You came to know why.'  
Anger exploded out of him rattling the house -the little plaster statues never moved, the smoke from the cigar slowly smoldering in from of the little plaster St Peter with his golden keys continued to rise, unperturbed by the wind rattling the hanging pots.  
'She was with my child, Angelique. How could you-'  
'I never would have put your child in danger, Vincent,' snapped Angelique, looking angry for the first time. She looked at his face and softened: 'I did this to save him. So he would be protected, by the only one who _could_ protect him.' She held out the picture again. 'Take it. You will see.'  
As soon as his fingers wrapped around it, he was thrown back in time,  
  
_There she was, the woman in the picture, her face flushed with life and magic and alarm. He fellt her pain and her despair, saw in her thoughts, the Villa in the Quarter, saw the cursed stairs up which Madame had dragged her child, hold like an iron clasp on the little arm. He saw her mount the steps to a house nearly as frightening, full of monsters just as terrible, but a house where dwelt her only chance to save her baby._ Fear. Hope.  
_'Please.' The vampire is even more dangerous than the stories said. She can feel it, her magic warning, warming. Warming with drums that beat long ago._ Blan moun, running with the houngans _. Runnin' with other things, too, things far scarier than any vampire, how that fear beat within her breast, how she could just taste it. Taste the deep blue sea beating like a heart against the waiting shores of Haïti. LaSiren, LaBaleine. Blan mound doing gwo magic. Big magic. One of us._ Speak _, the Ancestors whispered, those that weren't burried in the soil of New Orleans, those from that faraway shore,_ Ask _._  
_'Please, she took my daughter to the attic. Nobody ever comes back.'_  
  
For a brief second Vincent was back in the kitchen, the smell of bay laurel rising from the cup in front of him, then he was pulled under again. Into darkness...  
  
_...and pain._  
  
_A woman -tall, cold, hard- raised a lash. He flinched. Scared, scared, scared, hurts me, keeps hurting me. There was a loud crack and the woman fell, he heard it as the girl heard it, like someone crunching on cartilage, but louder. Loud as the drums right next to your ear when Mam'zelle Marie danced with Le Grand Zombi on St John's Eve. A face appeared, tilted to the side. A man. A stranger. Puzzled white face, dark eyes. Softening._  
_'Hello, darling.' She cringed, scuttling as far back as she could with the chains clasped around her raw wrists. 'It's okay,' he said, sitting on his heels. Like that he looked incredibly childlike himself, and the girl's fear receeded. He wasn't all grown up, like her mummy, even though he was still big. Big, BIG, big, like in the magic game. He smiled at her winningly. 'It's alright. Your mama sent me.'_  
_Hope welled up._  
_'Maman?'_  
_'Yes. She's waiting for you.'_  
_This time, she didn't flinch away when he moved. He peeled off the manacles like he was ripping a piece of paper and pulled her up, his arms wrapping around the little body. His arms were pleasantly cool against her feverish skin, and she fell into a doze, exhausted._  
  
Vincent came back to himself with a gasp and grasped blindly for the cup in front of him. It wasn't tea, but smoking rum. He didn't say it was early for it. It felt like a million years.  
'That little girl, that was...'  
'Jasmine Angelet. My grand-mother, she's in that picture with her mother Iris.' She tapped softly by the picture. 'It's not over.' He looked at her for a long time then closed his eyes and let the images come.  
  
_He was in a room, now. A large, beautiful room. The little girl was on her bed, her maman stroking her hair softly. Singing that song Lettie always sang to Charlie in her vibrant, beautiful voice:_  
_'Mache nan nwit ohh pa genyen chas mwen mache nan nwit la sirene male rive mwen_  
_mache nan nwit oh m pa genyen chas mwen mache nan nwit la sirene male rive mwen_  
_yon sel pitit mwen genyen manbo la sirene ohhhh'  
The girl's eyes fluttered shut and the room went silent.  
'Anything,' the woman -maman- said at last. 'Anything you want. You have earned all that I can -'_  
_'No.' The man stood in the doorway, straightening up from where he'd been leaning against the doorframe. This was the same man he had seen in the attic, though he looked older now, from the way he was standing, still his face was radiant with youth. He stood like a man and talked like a man but the body was that of a teenager. Seventeen, eighteen, tops. This was Kol Mikaelson. He looked at the woman straight in the eyes. 'Not for this. Never for this.' His lips brushed against her temple: 'The house is yours. You only belong to yourself, now, you and her both. Just take care of that little girl._  
  
He opened his eyes to the present, Angelique looking at him, there was another cup of smoking rum, smelling of bay leaf and cooking sugar, but he didn't drink it, or say anything, one way or the other. He just gave her the picture and walked away as the final rays of dawn colored the sky.  
  
  
Cami winced as the sun beamed a little too unthusiastically into her face, and turned over. She had to not forget the fucking blinds. Her head made her wince, but not from the effects of alcohol -since last night had to be the tamest sorrow drowning pity party in the history of the French Quarter ever. She threw her legs over the edge of the bed, wincing as the sun shone straight in her eyes and stuffed her feet into burgundy slippers before slipping into the living room with as little noise as possible. Her efforts proved to be unecessary. Lettie was sitting on the couch, fully awake, with her kness against her chest, her nose at the bore of a bottle of bourbon.  
'Did you get any sleep?'  
'No,' sighed the witch tiredly. She inhaled deeply, drawing in the scent of alcohol. 'I ,' she said. 'should be in the throws of the most massive hangover there ever was -hell, I should still be drunk!' She put the full bottle down on the table and pushed it away, before rumaging through her bag for a beautiful gilt pillbox with a faceted gem top that looked both like a genuine antique, and an actual gem. She poured out the content of it in the palm of her hand, which turned out to be enough pills to get Cami worried and swallowed them with a few leftover gulps of pepsi. She grimaced:  
'Ugh. Remind that this stuff is no good with most of the little bubbles gone,' she got up and moved towards the kitchen. After a beat, Cami ripped her eyes away from the pharmacy bag she saw peeking from Lettie's purse and followed. The witch turned to her with a teasing smile: 'What kind of Irish-American person doesn't have Lucky Charms in her kitchen?'  
Cami raised an eyebrow, shaking her head at the offer of bread and poured herself some oatmeal:  
'The kind that doesn't like to have marshmallow for breakfast?'  
Lettie picked up a fork protruding from what looked like a little toast and a lot of syrup and pointed it at Cami:  
'As a distinguished student in the fields of behavioral analysis and criminal psychology,' she said, with the utmost serious, 'I'm afraid I must warn you that that is indicative of deeply sociopathic behavior.'  
'I live on the edge,' said Cami, biting into an apple. Lettie nodded mournfully.  
   
  
'Ugh,' groaned Klaus, throwing himself on the couch, and looking far less rested than an actual night's sleep should have left him -probably because it had taken him half that time to wake from his broken neck and another sizeable amount of time and blood for his broken spine to pull itself back together. 'I swear I've had more remission time since I've been back in this city than in the last four hundred years.'  
'Perhaps you should stop provoking witches,' suggested Elijah good naturedly.  
'Well, where's the fun in that?' grinned Klaus.  
'God,' muttered Hayley, putting strawberring and gravy on her rosemay cheese bread, 'Should I start regretting getting out of bed for this conversation already?'  
'What on earth are you eating?' asked Klaus, straightening up.  
She shrugged:  
'Apparently I'm in the cravings part of pregnancy. I always thought it was kind of bullshit.' She took a large bite: 'I was wrong. You know this could use some olives.'  
Elijah frowned:  
'Maybe you should be careful, you could get sick.'  
'Oh, for god's sake,' said Klaus, rolling his eyes and dropping a jar of olives in front of Hayley, who beamead at him and added a handful of them in her sandwhich before taking a bite and sighing in bliss. Klaus didn't seem to realise he was staring.  
'Well,' said Elijah, clearing his throat, 'At least we know who Kol is, now.'  
'We do?' blinked Hayley, turning to Klaus for answers as she seemed to always be doing since he had woken. The blond shrugged, equally baffled.  
Elijah blinked:  
'We...do not? I thought you had...retrieved... me.'  
'Oh,' Hayley, tucked her hair behind her ear, embarrassed, 'hm, actually, you were here when I got back from Francesca's place. Then I called Klaus -'  
'The witches are generally unhappy with me,' the blond filled in.  
Elijah sighed, unsurprised to find that his brother's fallback plan when it came to finding him had been to traumatise an already fragile teenager into doing a probably useless spell.  
'- who came right home -' continued Hayley,  
'- and there you were,' finished Klaus. 'In a potato bag. An actual potato bag. It even had the word potato stamped on it.'  
'With a 'y',' said Hayley, trying hard not to sound amused. 'Po-tay-to.'  
'Kol,' growled Elijah, infuriated.  
'That was also Klaus' reaction,' although, she thought, Klaus had found it hilarious until he's seen the state Elijah was in. 'Are potatoes something of a signature for Kol or something?'  
'No, but this kind of puerile prank is precisely what he would find funny.'  
'Original frat guy.'  
'Something like that,' said Elijah, obviously deciding to move past this, although he still looked more wound up than Hayley had ever seen him. He turned to Klaus : 'is it too much to ask which of those girls you terrorized?'  
'It was more of an...intellectual back and forth between myself and Monique Devereaux. It all went very well, until I let slip that my mother had been pod-people-ing her little friend Cassy. She got a little side-tracked after that, it got uncomfortably windy, things caught on fire, and so on. The girl is a might unhinged if you ask me, but I thought our mother might enjoy the challenge.'  
'Did you, indeed?' Asked Elijah, reluctantly impressed. The little zealot might just inflict a psychological wound or two on their mother. Klaus' grin widened and Elijah rolled his eyes at him.  
'So, what now?' asked Hayley. She sounded amused, whether by the byplay or by Klaus throwing their mother to ravening Harvest Girls was anyone's guess.  
'Well,' said the blond readily, always pleased to expose his machinations, 'First of all, we have to figure out where, or rather who, our mother and Finn have got to. Just because the bodies they were occupying are done with doesn't mean we're rid of them, far from it.' He turned to Elijah. 'You did deal with the main issue there, yes?'  
'Whoever our mother choses as a host will bear a noticeable mark on the back of their hand.'  
Klaus grinned:  
'As for Kol -'  
'I called Jimson, like you asked.,' piped in Haykey. 'He'll be by later today.'  
Klaus lifted an eyebrow:  
'Why not now?'  
She swallowed the last bite of her sandwich:  
'I asked if he could bring over some of that crayfish in the special sauce that Carla makes, And it's gonna take a couple hours.'  
  
  
Sean Brady stumbled out of bed in a hurry, wincing at the noise. The pounding against the door didn't ease up.  
'I'm comin', for Christ's sake!'  
He fumbled with the keys and pulled it wide open. The woman on the other side was no one he recognized, in her late thirties to mid-forties, with chocolate skin and black locks down her back, her forehead slightly furrowed.  
He blinked at her:  
'Can I help you ma'am?'  
'...Finn?'  
He blinked agains, slowly, this time.  
'...No, m'am...'  
She looked frozen for a second, and he looked harder, his eyes falling to her hand where a large symbol had scarred into the skin. He swallowed, reaching behind the door for the amulet in the key dish.  
'I must have gotten the wrong house,' she said quickly, walking off before he could answer or act.  
Ester turned the corner and leaned against the wall, looking down at her hand in distaste. She had expected Elijah and Niklaus would keep track of her in this way, she had not expected Monique Devereaux's magic and accusations slamming into her and nearly killing her new host. She was supposed to have had her entire plan in place when she left Cassy Ruane's body. The child dead in its mother's womb, the werewolves squarely on her side. The witches were supposed to be winning so they would follow after her, regardless of who she was possessing. Niklaus and Elijah had played well but they were too careful to have orchestrated this so soon when they had yet to mark Finn as they had her. Which meant the attack came from Kol, whose reactions she couldn't predict because he had spent paradoxically little time with his siblings, and she had alsways chosen to remain with the others where she could see three of her children. Four, on the rare occasions where Finn's coffin was opened. She had not believed it would be an issue, she had seen enough of Kol to know he was still the vain, puerile child he had been when he had been turned. She had credited Elijah and Niklaus with the intelligence she had seen them develop over the centuries, not so for Kol. She had underestimated him, and gravely, and it was a mistake which was costing her far more than she could have foreseen. More importantly, what in the world had her youngest son done with Finn?  
She found a secluded spot, which she cloaked for safety and performed every location spell she could with her limited means. They should have worked, all the same. They didn't. Or, rather, they didn't show anything.  
She looked at the small cloth bag she had retrieved from the body of Cassy Ruane.  
'What did you do?'  
  
  
_'Angelique, what are you -?'  
'Vincent.'  
His throat closed up.  
'Eva...She's not...she's not...'_  
_Angelique sighed._  
_'No, Vincent. She's...' she stopped herself before saying fine, or 'still crazier than a bunch of wet cats in a wet bag' which was more to the purpose. But she's too far gone.'  
'Isn't there anything else?'  
'If we keep going, the child will be lost.'_  
  
Vincent shook off the memory and stood, looking for something to do to keep his mind off of the memories flooding his brain. In vain.  
  
_He heard the kitchen door slam and Lettie came into view, carrying a massive flower pot, somewhat perilously as her baby bump was starting to show._  
_'Woah,' said Vincent, plucking it out of her grip. 'Are we importing all the moss oaks from the swamp?'  
'No.' She thought. Wrinkled her nose. 'Not...currently. Is there a specific spell that would -'  
'God, no!' He set the pot down in the corner of the room. 'You shouldn't be lifting heavy stuff.'  
She showed him her hands. He didn't recognize the smudged symbols on it the palms but he guessed what she was about to say before she said it:  
'Wasn't heavy for me. Just...big. I just thought, now the magical alarm clock's gone I could maybe try and find those kids. And there's one piece of magic that is infaillible when it comes to finding lost treasure. It's a bit dicey, but...well...'_  
  
A knock on the door jolted him away from the past. He looked through the peephole and blinked, confused, before opening the door:  
'Dana?'  
The woman beamed, she was a bit heavy at the waist, but she made up for it by being also heavy in the chest area, and having the ass of Kim Kardashian, according to Lettie. Vincent still hadn't checked who Kim Kardashian was, but he'd been informed more or less reliably, by a couple of recovering labrats or...lab...werewolves and a prepubescent male witch that he wasn't missing anything. So. Dana held up a bag, which, now it was near his face, smelled mouth wateringly like food.  
'I brought over your favorite jambalaya -I...heard. About you and Lettie.'  
'You heard?' he asked, his mouth dry.  
'Come on, baby, you know covens are just giant gossip machines, don't you?' She caught sight of his face and sighed: 'Alright, so she called me. She was just wantin' someone to come over, you know, bring you something -seeing as how you were likely to foget to eat in the midsts of your justifiable brooding.' She lifted her hands up: 'Her words, not mine...She also said not to mention she had anythin' to do with it. Oops.' She scratched her head, dismayed, then perked up. 'I also brought something over for the dog; made it myself, off a real specific recipe Lettie e-mailed over. No wonder that snobby ass dog loves you guys; I don't even make stuff this fancy for myself!' She forked it in the bowl and put it out for the dog, then straightened up and looked at Vincent carefully. 'You wanna talk about it?'  
He stared.  
'Food was the extend of her involvement, alright?' she answered to the implied query. 'This is just me, tellin' my friend that I...well, I don't _understand_ , 'cause no one's actually sure what's happenin' here, just...If you wanna talk, I'm here. If you don't, that's okay, too.'  
'I just...she's not who I thought she was.'  
Dana considered this seriously:  
'People are never who you think they are.'  
Vincent shook his head:  
'There are...degrees...'  
'True,' she said, busying herself with looking extremely absorbed in pulling out plate.  
Vincent tilted his head:  
'What is it?'  
'I didn't say anything,' she said.  
He rolled his eyes. The woman was a terrible liar, whether it was by omission or not:  
'Come on, you got something to say, I can tell.'  
She put the plate down and turned around:  
'Look, I'm not the right person for this. You're my friend, and I want you to have someone to talk to. So...talk.'  
'But you won't say anything you're thinking.'  
Dana sighed:  
'She saved my baby, Vincent, that's gonna make it hard for me not to talk her up.'  
He pondered this:  
'What if I want to know what you think? I don't mean...talk her up, I mean...what you think. I wanna know what you think. Of this.'  
'I don't even know what "this" is,' she said.  
'But you got something to say, all the same. I wanna hear it.'  
'Fine.' She dumped the dirty dishes in the sink but didn't start the water. 'I just can't help wonderin' whether you're mad she ain't what you thought, or if maybe you're actually mad that she's not Eva.'  
He got up:  
'That's not fair.'  
'Isn't it, though? You been playin' house here, Vincent. Prentending nothin's changed...Tell me this: did that girl ever lie to you or mislead you? Did she pretend to be anythin' other'n who she is?  
'I...' he thought about it. What she had done. What she hadn't. 'Never.'  
'And you fell in love with her anyway.'  
'I didn't...this isn't about love,' muttered Vincent, pacing.  
'Everything is about love, Vincent. I'll leave you to think on that, whether your broodin' is justifiable or not.'  
The dog came nosing into the kitchen as soon as she'd left and fell to the food. Vincent shook his head. He winced as another memory assailed him.  
  
_Vincent stared at the mule standing in the kitchen, munching on a carrot, while Lettie proded the leaves sprouting out of the large pot._  
_'What happened to the dog?_  
_'It turns out labradors have some kind of magical cuteness factor,' she mumbled, cutting off a piece and sprinkling a powder over it that turned ashy then silver before it hit the floor._  
_'You're keeping it.'  
'His name is Oz.'  
Vincent's lips twitched.  
'Do Oz's magical ability include cattle herding? Because we might need it if you end up getting attached to the mule.'  
Lettie pointed. On the mules' big soft eye was a black silk cover.  
Vincent found he was actually smiling now:  
'You know these things have chips right?'_  
_Lettie raised wide startled eyes at him:_  
_'What, to eat, you mean?'_  
_He shook his head, finding it impossible to stop smiling._  
_'I'll take care of it.'_  
_'Okay.' Lettie bounced up, one hell of a feat considering she was as round as a planet and went to the kitchen to grab something to eat. She came back soon enough, stirring cut up pancakes drowned in chocolate sauce in jambalaya, watching with bright, intent eyes. Lettie was always, always learning some new spell, she fell on any new magic like packs of sponge fell in puddle, absorbing it all like it was her sole reason for being. The numbers of languages she could speak and incant in was staggering._  
_He chanted softly until the spell had taken action, the chip that would tell the mule's owner where it had gone off to frying with a feeling like static electricity raising the hair on their skin and Lettie laughed in wonder._  
_'There, all done.'_  
_'Brilliant!'_  
_He got up, wiping his hand on his jeans. Lettie fidgeted:_  
_'Vincent?'_  
_'Hm?'_  
_'I feel like having chips, now.'_  
  
  
'Am I interrupting something?'  
Elijah whirled around, thankful at his inability to sport a blush, because being caught by his brother and Hayley analyzing his reflection would have been...well...not the most comfortable situation. It took him a fraction of a second longer than it otherwise would have to realise that Klaus was alone.  
'Is female perfume a new preference of yours, brother?'  
Klaus' didn't even bother to hide his vicarious enjoyment of his brother's transparency.  
'Hayley has been having nightmares, and as you've been sleeping like a particularly heavy log since you got back, I've been left alone to deal with pregnancy hormones aggravated PTSD. Which is why she's now finishing a nap which was interrupted by a tedious bout of wailing and chest beating.' He blinked at his brother's expression: 'Elijah?'  
The brunette's face had sort of frozen at 'heavy log', a memory suddenly resurfacing.  
_You_ really _need to lose a few pounds._  
'Do you think i'm fat?'  
Klaus opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again, trying to figure out a proper answer to that:  
'I'm sorry what?'  
The exchange was interrupted by a knock on the door which made the blond hybrid bound up with genuine relief:  
'You should get that!'  
'...Yes,' said Elijah, slowly. 'Of course.'  
The blond was left in the room, shaking his head disbelieving.  
_What the everlasting fuck -?!_  
  
'Nice to see you again, Sir. Glad you're alright.'  
Elijah blinked at the polite young werewolf:  
'Thank you.'  
'Hayley!!' belowed Klaus as he came down the stairs. 'How are you Jimson?'  
'Well enough, sir.'  
'And the packs?'  
' _We're_ good, sir. 'Course the Crescents' are close to explodin' what with Olliver makin' deals with the Guerraras and nearly blowin' up the lot of us!'  
'Splendid!' said Klaus, grinning cheerfully.  
The werewolf snorted fondly:  
'I have the crackers you asked for,' he said hading over a pack of groceries which was filled to the brim with nothing but plain crackers. 'And the crawfish étouffée for Hayley.'  
'You're salt of the earth, Jimmy,' said Klaus with real warmth. 'HAYLEY!! CRAWFISH!!'  
'COMING!' hollered Hayley, indeed coming down the stairs in record time. The blond werewolf had used that time going around their kitchen like he was quite at home, forking her a large plateful of rice and crawfish.  
'I thought pregnant women weren't supposed to eat fish?' frowned Elijah.  
'Think that's just sushi, man.'  
'How's everyone?' asked Hayley. 'Do they need anything?'  
'Nah, all that stuff you'n Klaus gave the Padre for us is enough for three times the number, though Dani misses you.'  
'I miss her, too, I just don't want her caught in the crossfire with everything that's happening. Or anyone else, either.'  
'Isn't Dani that girl you spent two hours with on the phone last night?' asked Klaus, making a face that suggested he thought they were both just this side of bonkers. Jimson grinned:  
'She sure is,' he said, at the same time as Hayley lifted an eyebrow and said:  
'What, you can't afford the phone bill?'  
'While all this catching up is, I'm sure, of the utmost importance,' said Elijah, in a tone of such parental mildness that Hayley and Klaus immediately exchanged a look of honest to God horror (Jimson was eying him in barely disguised interest which made Hayley give him an amused and slightly disturbed look), 'Perhaps we could settle down in the sunroom and discuss the heart of the matter?'  
'Right,' said Klaus. 'We being on a clock and all.'  
'They have a sunroom?' whispered Jimson to Hayley. 'I thought those were extinct. Like mammoths and stuff.'  
She nodded wisely:  
'Don't worry, I'm pretty sure they are, if you're less that five centuries old.'  
'Do you feel somewhat ancient at the moment?' asked Elijah too quietly for the hearing of any but his siblings.  
'Carbon dated,' confirmed Klaus, sounding positively smug. 'Right,' he said when the four of them had settled down comfortably. 'Hayley mentioned that my brother's witch was looking for Malraux wolves and instead she found you lot, in some kind of...lab?'  
Jimson nodded:  
'Right outta a Bond movie. Marvel supervillain lairs 'ad nothin' on it.'  
'What did they want from you?' asked Elijah, frowning.  
The blond werewolf shrugged:  
'Venom, mostly. I mean, they ran a hell of a lot of tests but venom was the main thing.'  
Hayley lifted an eyebrow at Klaus, who was looking a little too surprised. Clearly he'd expected something else. He shook his head slightly and she frowned slightly at him before turning back to Jimson:  
'Do you know who they were?'  
'Not while I was there, nah,' he said, pretending he hadn't noticed the byplay, 'but Lady done told us when she got us out. Said it was called Kingmaker. So I went and looked it up, yeah? It's got a website an' everythin',' He gestured towards the computer, 'Can I-?'  
'Yeah,' said Klaus easily, 'have at it.' Elijah was starting to get somewhat alarmed at how out of character his brother was acting, honestly.  
Jimson found the site in a few clicks and opened a video.  
'Oh, you have got to be kiddind me!' snapped Klaus, while Elijah groaned.  
On the screen, Lucian, of all people, was giving what appeared to be a sales pitch.  
  
'Do you really think he's involved?'  
'Nah,' Klaus sniffed. 'I'm sure he's doing something dastardly enough, but I don't think it's got anything to do with what's going on, here.'  
'We have to take the possibility under consideration.'  
The hybrid acknowledged this with a surly head tilt.  
'What about the Malraux wolves, did she find one?'  
'No, the last one died weeks before Lady came for us. But she got all them blood samples.'  
Klaus nodded.  
'Okay, get us in the loop, will you?' said Hayley.  
He blinked at her:  
'What?'  
'Oh, come on. Earlier, you looked surprised they were taking venom, and now you heard she's taken blood you look like the world's righted itself again. I know there's some kind of fairy tale about Malraux blood being a big thing to power spells, but still...'  
'Malraux blood is renowned in certain circles, it's true,' admitted Elijah, 'I confess I didn't expect you to know about it.'  
Jimson shrugged:  
'Y'hear fairy stories, bonfire stories. S'mostly 'bout witches hunting Malraux to bleed 'em dry for some spell or other. Sometimes there a potion bubblin' in the wings for the sake o' suspense.'  
'One of the wolves who came here to stay a few months ago is...some kind of lore master,' said Hayley. 'He's been teaching me all this stuff, about our traditions, about the seven packs...'  
Klaus looked up in interest:  
'What did he tell you?'  
'He said that originally each one of the seven packs had a different ability but after centuries of inter-marriages those abilities all kind of melded together. Only a few packs retained abilities that were bound to their bloodline. And the Malraux pack is one of those.'  
'Really,' blinked Elijah, 'How fascinating. I have to admit the werewolf side is one intelligence that was mostly barred from us. The power which is rumored to exist in the Malraux line is one of awakening. It's supposed to be able to break any slumber, natural, unnatural, supernatural. A few centuries ago, some even believed that this power could awaken the dead. Many believed they could take this power for themselve, or harness it. I've never seen any proof to substanciate any of those stories, however.'  
'I have,' said Klaus. Elijah turned to him in surprise. 'Do you remember, not long after the death of the Governor's son, how the human faction started a witch hunt?'  
Elijah stared back, unfathomable.  
'You told the humans that the witches were making human sacrifices,' said Hayley.  
'Now love,' rejoined Klaus, 'you say that like I made it up.'  
She looked from him to Elijah and back:  
'Didn't you?'  
  
  
'So are we buying the whole aisle of cake ingredients then?' asked Cami, as Lettie put another dozen of eggs in the basket.  
'Don't be daft, darling,' grinned the witch, 'what kind of unreasonnable person do you take me for? I would never buy more than half an aisle of anything. I mean it would be greedy.'  
The blond laughed:  
'What are you making?'  
Lettie smiled oddly:  
'A gingerbread house.'  
'What,' blinked Cami, 'like a Christmas thing?'  
'Actually, like a magic thing. C'mon, I need more sugar.'  
The blond shrugged. And went with her to get sugar.    
  
  
The bell rang, and at the counter, Anna-May Defort lifted her head from a particularly juicy sex article in Cosmo to talk to her client -because she was professional like that.  
'Can I help you?'  
The woman smiled. Her smile was weird. And not good weird, either.  
'I am told you practice...vaudou.'  
'That's what the sign says.'  
The sign was a highschool prize pinned on a squared piece of painted cardboard, and it said 'Reigning Voodoo Queen 1998.' The woman looked at it. Then back at Anna-May.  
'...So it does.'  
Anna-May snorted and put down Cosmo. The lady had one of these snobby ways of saying things, to her mind, and she wasn't finding it funny.  
'What you be needin', _chère_?' she asked, unimpressed. 'Somethin' for that Sicilian mark on your hand?'  
The woman looked down, startled, at the whorls of raised skin at the back of her hand. When she looked back up, her smile was tighter and she wasn't underestimating Anna-May no more:  
'...No, dear, that's alright. But...' She pulled out a cellphone and fiddled with it for a moment, frowning like a grandma who couldn't quite work it before she managed to pull up a picture of a dead girl who'd had some serious mojo worked on her. 'What...would something like this do?' the lady asked. She was all tangled up inside, Anna-May saw, now she was looking straight outta her eyes at her. She'd met a guy like that before, guy'd had a shrink and a lot o' pills to take and still a whole lot of different people yelling out from inside his head. This lady wasn't the same, though. The guy'd had some place where all those people met, but the woman just had two people, neat and separate, and one of them was just shoving the other as far down as it would go, and that was real damned far, the human mind being deep as it was. She took a look at the picture and frowned:  
'You got that mojo bag,' she asked, pointing at the item on the photo.  
Ester pulled out the bag she'd retrieved from where it had fallen by Cassy's head.  
Annna-May touched it, then recoiled like she'd been burned and signed herself three times and made the sign to cast out evil -three times, too, it was that kind of mojo. Then she went out to spit on the floor.  
'Someone wanted in that girl's head,' she said quickly. She was done with this. 'And before you ask, there ain't no amount o' money as can make me help you wi' that.'  
The woman tilted her head:  
'Why not?'  
Anna-May sighed:  
'Look...What's your name?'  
'Ester.'  
'Look, Ester, this,' she pointed to the mojo bag, 'is Vinbrindingue. You know what that is.'  
'...No, I've...never heard of it.'  
'Course you ain't. Well, it's a kinda practice, yeah. Someone used it to call on Maître Carrefour so he'd open the way into that girl's head. Someone who may be more powerful than me, and who sure is nastier, and I ain't gettin' in their way for all the dollars in America, y'hear?'  
'Yes,' the woman said. 'I...hear. Do you happen to know someone who would?'  
Anna-May snorted:  
'No one alive. No one sane, either.' She took a long drink of her orange slurpee -she well and truly needed the brain freeze right now. 'You can go, now,' she added when the woman made no move to leave.  
She waited until the door had closed behind the woman to pick up the phone.  
'Marie, you ain't ever gon' believe what just landed on my counter,' she said, speaking quickly so she could go and cleanse herself soon as possible. 'And if you do ya'll wish you didn't.'  
  
  
'Jackson!'  
The werewolf stilled, turning around and giving a tired smile:  
'Aunt Marie. D'you need something?'  
The old wolf shook her head:  
'No, Jacks, nothing like that. I just got the daughter of an old friend on the phone. Anna-may, she's a voodoo queen, like her mamma before her. Things just got worse, Jacks. A lot worse.'  
'We already lost our home, aunt Marie, the pack's clamouring for Ollie's blood, and he can't shut up long enough to see he's in trouble. How much worse can things get?'  
'There are some witches, our Ancestors called them many names, but mostly they called 'em Bissage.'  
'That doesn't sound too threatenin'.'  
'There's man-eaters, Jacks. They go after babes in their cradles. They sacrifice and consume them for power.'  
Jackson paled:  
'And a miracle child's about to be born in New Orleans.'  
  
  
Vincent startled as a breeze picked up and a drizzle started to fall. Inside. He got up to pick up Charlie. The infant's expression was one of acute distress, but he didn't cry. He never did. Just like...well...  
  
_'You can cry, you know?'_  
_Lettie snorted, looking headstrong and a little pissed off, glaring so hard at the table he thought she'd set it on fire:_  
_'I don't cry. It's the one lesson my father ever taught me. Any pain you got, you make it into strength, so it can't make you weak.'_  
_'The only lesson?' he asked, because he didn't even know which part of that sentence to start in on._  
_'Well,' she shrugged, 'the only one worth a damn, anyway.'_  
_Vincent throught on this carefully:_  
_'Your father sounds like a dick.'_  
_She threw her head back and laughed. She was fascinating when she did that. Eva had been a wild thing, wilder even by the end, with that cold, clawing thing awkened within her. Lettie was wilder yet. Fleetingly, he thought there should be something frightening about that, but that felt foolish. Lettie didn't even understand cold. She was all vivid smiled, bright, sudden impulses, mad fun and heat. Lots and lots of heat._  
  
Charlie wriggled in his lap, craning his neck.  
'Mama,' he said plaintively. His very first word. He still didn't cry. But Vincent did.

 

 _Dead servants-slaves in a room for a grave_  
_If you listen you can still hear them call_  
_Madame La Laurie - brick window marks the grave_  
_The Surgeon of New Orleans - bed-side in a metal cage_  
_Madame La Laurie - she love to operate_  
_The Surgeon of New Orleans_

  
  
'When did you deal with Malraux wolves?' asked Elijah. 'And do not trifle with me. There were no human sacrifices.'  
'What, out of all the witches you know so bloody well,' snorted Klaus, 'Don't make me laugh. You couldn't have heard sacrificial lambs baahing for mercy with Celeste's thighs blocking your ears. But in all honesty, this isn't really my story. It's Rebekah's.'  
Hayley tilted her head curiously, Jimson was less circumspect:  
'Who's that?' he asked blankly. Klaus smirked:  
'Rebekah is my younger sister. Of us all she is the most...romantic, I think is the word. I doubt Elijah would allow me to say foolish.'  
'Yet, it's out now,' noted the vampire. 'Odd how these things work out. Do you ever intend to tell this ridiculous and, I've no doubt, entirely fictitious tale?'  
Klaus shook his head:  
'Why so hurtful, brother? You're not still smarting over Celeste's unfortunate demise, are you? I think the last few months have proven she wasn't exactly the girl for you, being certifiably insane, and all. Or is this where we find out about a tragic Oedipus complex thus far gone unnoticed? No? I'll go on then. Now,' he turned to Hayley, 'I'm sure my sister has told you all about the many ways I have hindered her desires for peace, love, a lawn, and a white picket fence with the one point five adopted kids we can only hope won't end up as a snack the next time she throws a tantrum or whenever they get mad and tell her they hate her -though I wouldn't bet on it. No doubt she has also told you all about Marcel, the love of her life, the one and only. What she probably neglected to mention was that Marcel was only one in a long, very long line of one and onlys over the years. He wasn't even the only one here in New Orleans. Back when young Marcellus was but a sprout, radiant Rebekah mended her grief over the pathetic death of the governor's son in the arms of a true prince charming. Adrian Malraux.'  
Jimson startled:  
'Your sister dated a werewolf?'  
'Once she was past her grief,' he turned to Elijah quizzically, 'it took her...three days? Wasn't it? Well you can't resent the lad. Black set off Rebekah's fair complexion and blue eyes to perfection.'  
'Adrian was a Malraux?' asked Elijah, more practically. 'How did I not know about this? I had never heard any of the pack was ever here.'  
'Well, given the fact that they were hunted somewhat systematically, it's no surprised to wished to keep it to themselves, nonetheless, young Adrian confessed his origins to Rebekah. The Malraux come from up North, a few of them, including Adrian's father, came down from Canada, with the Acadian French. Now, obviously more of them stayed back up there, but even so, their numbers weren't very great even then. Still, despite everything, they were, for a time as happy as two people could be, at the time, given the strife between vampires and werewolves...and the fact that Adrian was a slave.'  
'He was? asked Hayley, 'How did they even meet?'  
'His mother was a slave, and thus he was born a slave as well. He sold goods on Congo Square, although back then it had a far more evocative name -political correctness hadn't yet been invented. It was an important place of business for the slaves, by selling their crafts, they gathered the money necessary to purchase their freedom. Adrian danced there, too, when they gathered on Sundays. They met on that square, and by the by fell in love. Until the day Adrian had made enough money to purchase their freedom. He and Rebekah were overjoyed. He went to his mistress and bought his freedom...but he never met Rebekah in the agreed place. I remember walking on her the next day after she had spent the night worrying herself sick, her eyes puffy...'  
  
_Good grief, Rebekah, are you still whining over that human toy of yours? He's probably spending every last penny he's got left on Storyville whores._  
  
He shook his head: '...I told her she was being ridiculous, but she simply would not let it go -and she was getting shrill, so I told her I'd sniff him out. I truly expected to find him in bed with a prostitute, or two. Instead I found him in the attic of his former mistress, sliced open. You've heard of her I'm, sure, she's rather famous, after all. Madame LaLaurie.'  
'Oh, god. She was a witch?'  
'A very skilled one, though a monster even by my standards, and you can hardly imagine what those are. She was using his blood to draw a sigil -not just his. The place was littered with bodies. Most of them werewolves. Some, I believe all Malraux, had had their blood used in drawing the sigil, others had been slaughtered. Executed. For what imagined crime, I do not know. All of those bore the same mark that is now on your shoulder. There were witches, too, all or, I assume, former slaves, like Adrian, who paid for their freedom first or had it bought for them before she killed them. Most of the witch sacrifices were young. Children. I won't lie, my intentions were not lily-white or pure, they weren't even solid grey. Deaths were starting to pile up, people were starting to look at us, this was a golden oportunity. I slipped a word in the right ear, and...'  
He shrugged.  
'What happened to Adrian's body?'  
'Our early days here we had a crypt made for us, in one of the earlier cemetaries. Too many people would have noticed if the well known Mikaelson family never deplored any death at all. His is the only real body there. Rebekah brought him flowers every week after church, although of course she never found out. To this day I believe she blames me for his death.'  
'You never told her?'  
He shrugged:  
'The human faction took the little tip I gave them and rolled with it. The last thing I needed for the bloodless bodies of witches to start littering the city. I mean, they weren't the smartest of people, but they weren't that bloody daft, either.'  
'So she still doesn't know.'  
Klaus didn't answer. But then that was answer enough.  
'You guys should be a reality show,' said Jimson, sounding uncertain whether he was impressed or queasy.

 

 _Behold, the confectionery behemoth_  
_They say "Candyman, Candyman, spit me a dream_  
_Blow a chunk of the levee out and spit me a stream_  
   
  
'So, gingerbread house,' asked Cami, watching as Lettie decorated the intricate colonades with sugar.  
'It's representational magic,' explained the witch, 'the name speaks for itself, but, it's actually a fairly difficult process, because the building I'm representing, well, it's spelled, and they didn't do things by half, either.'  
Cami laughed:  
'I have to admit, cake making isn't exactly what I pictured in the witchy kitchen.'  
'Oh, don't worry, we have bubbling cauldrons, too, this one I actually learned here, in New Orleans. There was this witch my brother used to bed, German girl -ugh, she was been a creepy one. A wiz with boundary spells, though. She would be, of course. Great place for her lot, this, all that sugar...'  
Cami grinned:  
'Like Halloween candy?'  
'I was talking more Hansel and Gretel, love, but sure, why not.'  
'O...kay,' Cami said, trying not to think on that too hard. 'I'll leave you to eat then.' She setlled in a seat where she could keep an eye on the kitchen and pulled her computer onto her knees. She didn't want to intrude, really, and the last thing Lettie needed right now was someone going through her bag, but she couldn't help but worry at the number of pills Lettie gulped down like sweets.  
'This, is a huge breech of privacy,' she mumbled to herself even as she typed, in quick succession Haloperidol, Carbamazepine, Paroxetine and Clonazepam, she swallowed as the results appeared in each page (anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication). She closed them quickly then slammed her computer shut.  
Yeah. A huge breech of privacy.'

 

_Still the ungodly screams, issue from the palace  
Servants to the Queen, their blood fills her chalice  
Seven suspended by the neck, limbs stretched and torn  
  
Carved by her knife_

'Monique was right,' said Abigail, softly, looking straight at the reflection of the woman standing behind her. 'That spirit looking at me now once gazed out of Cassy's eyes.' She turned to face her : 'Monique is very angry at you. Ester.'  
'My mission is still the same,' in this new body, the Original Witch had a smooth, persuasive jazz voice.  
'You got our friend killed,' said Abigail, flatly. 'You took her life.'  
Anger sparked in the dark eyes:  
'And how many more lives will be lost if my children are not stopped? I must call on different spirits, now, different Ancestors, who predate this city. And I need your help.'  
Abigail tilted her head quizzically:  
'My help?'  
'On the Ancestral Plane, I spoke to you. I taught you ancient magics. The magics of your Ancestors, in the Old World. You will speak the Vardhlokur. The spirits must come. We have to finish this.'  
Abigail sighed, but what choice was there? To side with the vampire that had overrun the City?  
She opened her mouth and started to recite the chant. And she was good, so the spirits came. She closed her eyes so she could see, with the sight that matered. She only saw him a brief second, a face lost in the shadow of a broad brimmed straw hat and the brief flare of a pipe then she was standing at a crossroad, alone -no. She turned. The woman wore lavish clothing one or two centuries removed from the present. Her face was oval and pretty but her eyes were cold and hard.  
'You wanted the answers of Maître Carrefour. Here you are.'  
'You are not he.'  
The woman laughed mockingly:  
'No, I am not he,' she mimicked.  
'Then how will he answer me?'  
The woman sighed, as though speaking to a particularly dull child:  
'Maître Carrefour is Master of Crossroads -you choose,' she twirled around to englobe all four directions, 'which way you wanna go -and then there's no going going back.'  
'I have questions,'  
'You chose,' the woman repeated.  
Ester thought. There were several questions foremost in her mind, most of them, if not all, concerned her troublesome, unpredictable youngest boy. She wanted to know what he had done with Finn. She wanted to know what he had found in her mind, she wanted to know where he was hiding, but most of all, she wanted to know what he was planing. She took a deep breath and told the woman this, and before her appeared a set of stairs. The attic she reached, although she would not have known it, was the very attic that Klaus remembered. It was wide and airy, although the boarded up windows kept it dark. The smell of dicomposing bodies was hardly tolerable. There was a pile of them. A man was lying on the floor, still alive, the cut across his stomach made especially to stretch out his death as long as possible.  
The woman walked across the room and lowered herself by the body with a smile.  
'Do you recognise him?' she asked.  
Ester looked at the scene blankly:  
'No.'  
'That's too bad. Your daughter had quite the liking for this one. I made that cut like that so the blood would pool on his belly and I could get every last drop with my brush, so I could finish...'  
She turned to the wall, where a great serpent of blood was painted, biting its own tail like the Midgard serpent of the Norsemen.  
'Is that supposed to be art?' asked Ester, the disgust obvious in her voice.  
'Art?' the woman laughed. 'This is far beyond art, this is power of awakening and spirit brought together into a sigil that can bring It back from the dead. This is magic pure! A destiny I knew I had since I was but four years old, when I wrapped my hands around the neck of that puppy my father's colored whore had purchased, and felt that fragile throat beneath the white fur, felt its pulse run out that this was what I was born for, killing black dogs.'  
Ester shook her head to rid it of the image.  
No one alive will help you. No one sane, either, the voodoo witch had said. She'd known what she was talking about Ester would give her that.  
'What does this have to do with Kol?'  
The witch smiled languidly:  
'Everything.'  
'I asked for answers,' snapped Ester, her eyes flashing.  
'Well,' the woman shrugged, unbothered. 'I can't do everything.'  
'Everything?' Every word was infused with contempt and venom. 'All you have done is relive your sick, deranged amusements.'  
'Her, now, I won't be called sick by the likes of you. For all my sins, I never did harm to my own flesh and blood. You wanted to know what Kol Mikaelson was up to, this is it. He stands between this spirit and what it wants. A new area, where we, who were loyal will be reborn. He is a thorn that will be erased and when the Hollow gets its hands on him, his soul will be torn apart.'  
The attic faded around her and she was at the crossroad once more.  
'Well,' The woman smiled, dark eyes flashing.'That was informative, don't you think? Bye now.'  
'No,' snapped Ester.  
It hadn't occured to her -although it should have- that Kol's plans could have litterally nothing to do whatsoever with their family. Whatever it was, she had assumed it would reveal his intentions to wards his siblings and herself, potentially even what had happened to Finn. It wasn't that she hadn't known his ability to actually go against dark forces even if it seemed to go against his own fortunes of those of the family, she had seen first hand his struggle against Silas' release, she had simply dismissed it as an anomaly. This was Kol, after all. And now, with his primary motivation being entirely removed from anything she had imagined, all her questions remained unanswered. She needed to know. She needed to know what he had wanted from her head -and what he had actually found.  
'You...really shouldn't do that...'  
As she stepped onto the other roadway she had time to get a sense of a large room, laughter and music, grapes of mistletoe above her, saw Kol's dark head bowed to whisper over a slender fair haired girl in pink, heard her laugh, such a familiar laugh, but from where? Identical dimples flared in both their cheeks then suddenly she was back at the crossroad, but everthing there was dark, and threatening, and there was someone else there. For amoment she thought it was a man, old, with a large straw hat, his face hidden in the shadows, a pipe between his teeth, then she realised it was only a pool of water, sparkling in the shadows.  
'You wanna see what's it's like an another road, mama?' he asked. He was the old man again, and it was his voice which was like sparkling water. He nodded to himself. 'Yeah. If you're gonna go to war, it's time you stop spilling that blood that is dedicated to me and start spilling some o' your own.' Then, he raised his cane and delt her blow so strong she was back in that long house, and she knew, Mikael had found out about Ansel, Mikael would kill them both, starting with her. She had known this pain would come one day.'  
'Wow, that looked nasty.'  
Ester looked up, and the first thing she saw was the body she had most recently been inhabiting, looking around wildly.  
'What happened?'  
Nearby, the slender, blond Harvest girl was peering down at her, looking amused.  
The Original witch looked down at herself. Herself. She was back in her own body, the body that had turned to ashes.  
'Impossible.'  
'Some things are more powerful even than you, despite your personnal opinion,' said Abigail disdainfully, picking at her nails.  
'What. Is. Happening?'  
The blond girl shook her head and turned to the dark skinned witch:  
'Right, I'm sorry, I'm Abigail, that is Ester. I'm part of the French Quarter coven, who are you?'  
'I'm Lenore. From the Algier coven.'  
'Nice to meet you. Actually it's a long story, but basically...'  
The conversation faded to a confusion of noise, for Ester, everything blurring around her. She could hear their heartbeat. Her mouth watered and suddenly she knew. Another road.  
'No,' she begged. 'No, no, no, no, no. It can't be. No.'  
'We have to go,' said Lenore, grabbing the blond girl by the hand and dragging her away.  
'I don't understand, what -'  
'She's in transition. Come on, we need to get out of here!'  
Ester fell to her knees.  
No.

 

 _Life is like a dice game:_  
_One roll could land you in jail or cutting cake, blowing kisses in the rice_  
_rain_  
  
  
Hayley stared at the recording on her phone. Her thoughts, as they often did lately, were concerned with Dani, and her baby. The thought that a child -that her child could be triggered in infancy was one even more terrifying than the knowledge of the curse. Her finger lingered over one of the recordings on her cell. It was one of the few she hadn't listened to over and over again, because it had imprinted on her mind like a brain, and she couldn't stop hearing it. It was labeled, neatly, 'unification ceremony'.  
_To evolve_ , Ansel had said in his staid voice,  _werewolves would perform a ritual. A shaman would marry the alphas of each bloodline, and then the special abilities of each would be inherited, mystically, by everyone who participated in the ritual_.

 

 

This is ridiculous, she told her phone, decidedly.

Hybrids only changed when they had to, and her baby...and little Dani...

Unification Ceremony.

She started.

'Oh, my god!' Before she was even halfway through the words Klaus and Elijah were there, hovering.

Klaus, she noted, with a surge of fondness disproportionate to the moment, had the same expression he'd had when Elijah wouldn't wake up, the one that said  _I'm not worried, what are you talking about?_ Even though that little wrinkled between his eyebrows wouldn't smooth out.

'She kicked!'

His mask fell and his eyes widened:

'What?'

'Get in here!' she exclaimed, grabbing his hand and putting it on her stomach.

'I don't -oh!'

He fell down on the bed next to her, his face open and wondering. Elijah quietly retreated to the doorway, watching them with hooded eyes. It had been a  _long time_  since he had seen an expression like this on his brother's face.

That was  _good._ And if he couldn't breathe, well, he didn't precisely  _need_  to, did he?

 

 

_A lot of kings seen death and turn queen_

So let me get this straight, you did all of this just so you could melt all the doors in red water.  
Yes, darling, said Lettie, completely honestly. That's exactly why I did all of this. She poured the liquid, now a tansparent, watery thing with a slight blue tint, in a small dish, went to the balcony and whispered a few words, a curious white bird perched on the iron balustrade, before hopping boldly onto Lettie's hand. She held out the cup and it drank, before flying off.  
So melting gingerbread doors and giving birds diabetes was the order of the day?  
Lettie grinned cheekily:  
Precisely the order of the day.  
Cami shook her head, laughing.  
'Well, now that we've ticked off all the items on the list -'  
Her offer of a soda was interrupted by a knock on the door.  
Lettie winked:  
'Hold that thought,' she said, opening the door. Her eyes widened.  
'Hi,' said Vincent.  
'Hi,' she breathed.  
'I...' He shook his head. 'Do you remember...when we met?'  
Lettie smiled hesitantly, dimples fluttering to life in her cheeks, and Cami blinked, remembering, somewhat incongruously, thinking once that she always expected Lettie to have dimples when she didn't.  
'It's not everyday a girl ends up pregnant.'  
'You never hid. You told me your name. You told me i wouldn't like who you were. Who you associates with. I say as long as you protect my baby. I said  
'I don't wanna know.'  
'And you really didn't,' finished Lettie, tiredly.  
'And it should matter more than this. I should care. But I don't.' She looked up, the hope in her eyes was nearly childlike and she looked, suddenly, utterly adolescent, even though she was obviously in her late twenties. 'Charlie misses you. I miss you. Come home.'  
Lettie threw her arms around his neck.  
Lettie hugged Cami, twice, before she left.  
'Thank you, really. Nobody's ever done anything like that for me before. Not when they didn't have to or got something out of it.'  
'Hey, now, what are friends for?'  
'I'll come back tomorrow for the candyhouse.'  
'Oh, good, I wasn't gonne ask!'  
Lettie laugh and hugged her again, Cami watched them walk down the street, watched Vincent put his arm around her, smiling. She was still watching them when the phone rang.  
'Yeah? Oh, hey uncle Kieran...She just left, actually. Sure, I can come to St Anne's.' With a sigh, she grabbed her bag and got in her car. Her uncle's expression, when she saw him, was as somber as his voice had suggested. 'What happened?'  
'After she broke the hex on me, I started to look up your friend.'  
'Uncle!'  
'Look, like I told you, that hex was unbreakable.' Cami opened her mouth to protest but he quieted her with a lifted hand. 'Wait till you hear what I've found.'  
Cami sighed. Lettie's prescription flashing through her head:  
'What?'  
'Since I didn't really know anything about her beyond her name, I looked into her family.  
'There was only one Sinclair witch born in this generation -Eva. Sinclair.'  He handed her a picture. The face was the same but the hair was long and dark, the curls large and defined, the eyes were dark, too. And intense. 'She was married to Vincent Griffith right out of college. Your Lettie doesn't exist. Do you have her full name?'  
'Yeah. It was on her resume.'

_'Colette Sinclair?'_  
_'Ugh, please, don't call me that, those boys from Tulane only know the one thing in French.'_  
_'Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?' guessed Cami, who'd heard it a billion times since she'd started at the bar. The girl snorted:_   
_'At least they actually know what it means if their hip movement's anything to go by.'_  
_'Hey, my name is Camille, I share your pain.'_

Vincent's voice echoed in her head. Incredulous and hurt.  
_Kol. Mikaelson._

'Oh, my god,' she breathed.

_You never hid yourself from me._

'What is it?'  
'Her name is...Colette' ( _Kol_ ) 'McKeyla' ( _Mikaelson_ ) 'Sinclair.'

You told me your name.

Her uncle's eyes widened:  
'She isn't allied with Kol Mikaelson,' he said. 'She is Kol Mikaelson.'  
Cami stared at the picture in front of her, the words barely registering.

 

'Hey, man.'

Finn started awake, looking up into unsympathetic eyes.

'What?...Where am I?'

The man grimaced in disgust and hauled him up roughly.

'Feckin' students. Get the hell off my lawn!' he growled, showing him onto the street. Finn looked up looked up at the sign.

_What?!_

 

 

_They built my city on top of a grave_

 

 

 

 

In case it wasn't entirely clear, Ester's guide is the  _very_ awful Madame LaLaurie herself. The attic where Jasmine was locked up also belonged to her, but as this is 1924, she isn't Madame LaLaurie yet, but widow Blanque, which is why I mentioned the Villa, Villa Blanque, where she lived back then. I was a little pissed when the series attributed LaLaurie's murders to the Hollow, therefore kind of dismissing them, so in here I tried to keep that canon but also to keep responsability for her. The reason I used the very disturbing image of stangling a puppy was because animal cruelty in one third of the criminal triad, the other two being arson and wetting the bed, which makes LaLaurie a psychopath before the Hollow ever got to her.

 

So no one's confused, if anyone's checking the details, I actually used two songs in this chapter, one of them is Exhibit A, which I chose as title to this chapter as this  _is_ Exhibit A of what the Hollow is capable of, the other is The Surgeon of New Orleans, a song on LaLaurie.


	9. It's getting close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CAMI: [angrily] You have no right! Those dark objects are my family's legacy. 
> 
> KLAUS: [frustrated] Well, that's funny, because I seem to remember my brother Kol making them, so perhaps they've been my family's legacy all along! 
> 
> -Wild at Heart
> 
> CAMI: She was right, wasn't she? Aurora? She did this to turn you against me, to rob me of the one advantage I have over her... My humanity. And me, like this? It's a problem for you, isn't it? Not the darkness-- that you find intriguing-- the fact that I am out of control. 
> 
> [Klaus scowls at her accurate assessment, which only makes Cami more smug]
> 
> CAMI: I'm out of your control, and you hate it, don't you? You have spent ten centuries getting the entire world to tremble at your name, but you're the one who's terrified, Klaus. You are a scared little kid, convinced he'll be tossed aside the second he isn't needed. 
> 
> \- Wild at Heart

_It's getting close_  
_I lose control_  
 _It's taking over_

 

'We can't break into a cemetery!' Whispered Stacy fiercely, hugging herself. It wasn’t meant to ward off the chill, any more than the fancy black velvet jacket with its pinched waist, flaring skirt and its little cameo buttons of sardonix made sur mesure, after Anne Rice’s Lestat’s jacket in the book Merrick. New Orleans was damp, yes, but as hot as any tropical destination at that time of the year, even this late into the night and the garment was wet with sweat under her arms, and she'd been nervous that people might see it -or, worse, smell it, since the bar. 'What kind of karma is that?'

'Come on,' grinned Jayme. 'I thought you wanted to see the Voodoo Queen!' He was even cuter drunk, his hazel eyes glinting with mischief he usually buried deep. 'I'm a freaking accountant, Stace,' he would say. 'Whimsy isn't in the job description.' Her answer was usually 'You're not your job!' He seemed a little too dedicated to proving her right tonight. 

She drew the coat a little tighter around herself. This really wasn't the gothic adventure she'd had in mind when she thought about doing this.

'None of this would have happened if we had just taken the tour!' She mumbled. 

He scowled:

'I'm not paying 25 dollars to see a bunch of tombs. C'mon, I'll give you a leg up.'

She sighed, but climbed over the wall anyway, waiting anxiously for him to join her. She had to admit it was a little exciting, now they were in here. Kind of like an A&E Special. Jayme grinned and her heart fluttered when he laced their fingers and pulled her into a well-cared for alley.

'This is ridiculous,' he grunted after fifteen minutes walking around. 'Where is this thing?'

Stacy scowled. He'd let go of her hand a while ago, now, and her sweat was getting cold and it felt gross with the warm night air on her skin.

'See, if we had taken the tour -'

'I told you, I...wait, is that it?'

She craned her neck. The vault was large, and it was covered in sets of three X's. She felt a sense of awe at the sight of it. 

'Wow, that's a lot of kisses, this lady gets,' said Jayme, his smile looking grotesque through the bit of torchlight that allowed her to see him. 'Bit on the Necrophiliac side, isn't it?'

She scowled, annoyed at his flippancy:

'The three X's are a voodoo symbol, fuckwit.'

'Yeah? And that junk's voodoo, too, is it?' he asked, snorting, shining his torch on a spattering of random things at the base of the grave: Mardi Gras beads, coins, fake flowers, rosary medals...

'They're offerings, what are you doing?' she asked, alarmed, as he started to rumaged through the pile.

'Think one of those is your color?' he asked, moving the beam of light over several lipstick tubes.

'No. Stop that. What are you -put that back!' she exclaimed as he picked up an unused condom pack.

'Come on,' he grinned teasingly, 'she's not gonna use it!'

'Put. It. Back!' She hissed. 

'Marie Laveau,' he read out loud, to distract her, slipping the condom in his back pocket, 'this Greek Revival tomb is reputed burial place of this notorious "Voodoo Queen" (she glared as he mimicked the quotation marks with his fingers). A mystic cult, voodooism, of African origin was brought to this city from Santo Domingo and flourished in the 19th century, Marie Laveau was the most widely known of many practitioners of the cult. Well that sounds like a real 19th century plaque.'

'Do you work at being this much of a douchebag?'

'Nah, it's a natural gift. Well, now we're here, what do we do?'

She just glared at him, her arms folded on her chest and he rolled his eyes:

'Alright, fine, I'm sorry, but I climbed a damned wall for this, so come on. Bit of a last chance, here, Stace...'

She sighed:

'Fine. According to legend -'

'- You mean your tourist Guide, sorry. Sorry, shutting up.'

'According to legend,' she pressed, 'people go to Marie Laveau's tomb to ask favors from the other side.'

'Oh, well, good, 'cause I'm ace at asking for favors. Dear dead queen, I would like to win the lottery, maybe get a free car...'

'Shut up, you retard!' How could she ever have thought he made a cute drunk? He made a total asshole when he was drunk. Why did he have to ruin this for her?

'Gosh, you're right, I should be asking for something spooky, since we missed the ghost at the Bombay Club. Must have been an off-night.'

'Yeah, you do that!'

'Right'o! Go on, Marie, give us something spooky.'

'You're an ass,' she said, somehow past being pissed and stuck somewhere between sick of his shit and a little amused.

'Well, what are we wishing for then?'

'We? There is no "we". You wanna piss off the dead in the most haunted city in America, you're on your own. I will make a wish of my own. Respectfully.'

She closed her eyes, knocked three times on the vault and opened them again. Her scream of terror was cut short when sharp fangs ripped into her throat.

 

 

_Where can I go?_  
_When the shadows are calling?_  
 _Shadows are calling me_  
 _What can I do?_  
 _When it's pulling me under?_  
 _Pulling me underneath_  


 

Smoke eddied at the surface of the water. It was idyllic. The unearthly calm was interrupted by a noise like the shrieking of nails against a blackboard. His vision was parasited by images of blood dripping on a wall, by blue moving light. Someone roughly grabbed him.

'Enough!' the voice sank and burnt through him like lightning. 'Enough!' he stumbled where he was thrown to his feet. New Orleans, he was... 'Get up! Get the fuck up! I'm warning you, if this happens again I'm calling the cops. Three times in two god-damned days, the fuck?!' Finn shook his head, mouth dry, tripping down the street. He needed to get back to his moth...to his mother...He stumbled. God, he was so...tired? He looked around him, disorientated. He'd gone from Mid-City to waist deep in lake Pontchartrain in a sec- he looked at his watch as he got up on shore. Blinked. In...three hours. The blue mark at his throat throbbed spreading gentle, soothing coolness through him against the thick heat of the day and the feverish, sweaty state he found himself in. As he closed his eyes, he caught it once more, that shadow he would see at the corner of his eye before time was lost. Just a dark blond shape against the blinding light.

'You...why...why are you keeping me away from my mother?'

'Shh, it's for your own good, sweetheart. Sleep, now. You need it.'

 

 

‘Ugh, who's baking?’ groaned Klaus, turning his head into his pillow. He did not need this after a night of particularly charmless dreams about his equally charmless father.

‘Sorry,’ called out Jimson. He did smell of…what appeared to be croissants?

Elijah stared, wondering when the kitchen had last been used to this purpose. Rebekah loved the milestones of mortal life. Loved cooking brunch in the morning and sitting together reading the newspaper and simply being. He missed her immensely. Those things which had been part of their lives for so long when morning calls were always expected and there were servants everywhere and privacy simply did not exist were precisely those things he found himself yearning for so very much. Klaus had shed them without a care; Hayley ate a bowl of cereal standing up, along with increasingly weird combos, not omelets with white truffle shavings perfectly complemented by compelling white Gravner Anfora Ribola Gialla. Elijah found he missed his...his life. Kol would laugh, of course. We're dead, Elijah, he would say, his tone annoyed and a little mocking, as though he was speaking to a peculiarly dim child.

‘Do stop before I throw up,’ sniped Klaus, pulling him back from his thoughts.

Hayley snorted from the doorway:

‘Here I thought I was supposed to have the morning sickness,’ Klaus glared blearily at her as Jimson, apparently unbothered by the blunt dismissal, pottered about downstairs, taking out the pastries, and sending them off to the warehouse via a silent wolf in a blue shirt that was too tall for his bike, before airing the place without fuss.

Klaus swore:

‘Shit, don’t do that –that makes it worse.’

Jimson closed the windows, still disturbingly placid, and washed his hand before making his way to Klaus’ bedroom.

‘Well, get on with it, then,’ snapped the hybrid bad-temperedly, ‘what? Are you going to hover in my doorway the rest of the morning?’ Hayley shrugged and threw herself on the bed, while Elijah and Jimson took seats around the room so they could resume their...discussion.

‘If Malraux blood truly has the effect which legend gives it –‘ noted the brunette Original as though half a day and a ridiculous amount of commotions hadn’t happened in the meantime.

‘I saw that sigil, brother,’ protested Klaus, ‘the magic –‘

‘Sigils have powers in and of themselves,’ tempered Elijah. ‘So does blood, so does sacrifice, put them all together and –‘

Klaus was already shaking his head. He stopped, feeling vaguely nauseated by the too quick motion:

‘No, this was different. I know what I saw.’ 

Elijah acknowledged this not altogether happily, and sighed:

‘Then we need to know what the witch wants it for.’ He took a second, a queer expression had stolen across Niklaus’ face, not for the first time since he had woken, but whatever Machiavellian plot or realization he had made about the witch he clearly wasn’t inclined to share it. Elijah tempered his annoyance, reigning in a temper he knew to be too hot at the moment. There was a strange energy within him ever since he had recovered which, coupled with the knowledge of the witch’s relation to Kol, made him feel restless and hotheaded. He did not rejoice in the feeling. He turned to Jimson: ‘She told you a spirit was after her child? And she wanted to get rid of it?’

‘Yessir,’ said the blond wolf easily.

‘Malraux blood seems counter-indicated.’

‘Unless Malraux blood is what summoned it,’ noted Klaus idly. His voice was odd, and there was a thin sheen of sweat clinging to his skin which made his brother frown –what -?

‘That's quite the leap of logic, brother.’

‘Is it?’ protested Klaus, growing agitated. ‘The Malraux were near extinction two hundred years ago, they may very well be actually extinct now, yet you've never heard a single account to substantiate the legend while I only came across it once, accidentally. In one thousand years. We're talking about the same coven, in the same city. A city where they practice Ancestral Magic, tell me, brother, what are the chances it is not connected?’

They were, the other three realized, not very many chances of that indeed.

‘Great,’ said Klaus, ‘If that’s settled, kindly fuck off.’

Elijah rolled his eyes, squiring Hayley out of the room.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked worriedly, pulling at her hair. The thought of a spirit requiring children sacrifice in the city she was about to give birth wasn’t exactly one she relished –especially since Jackson had called not so long ago to tell her about cannibal witches –because regular witches weren’t bad enough.

‘You should rest,’ said Elijah, eying the circles around her eyes too quickly for a mortal eye to catch, ‘I will try to find someone with a little more information.’

‘Like who? The witches aren’t exactly going to be cooperative.’

‘Thankfully, the witches are not the only ones interested in occult history in the City. Don’t worry,’ he added, shoving his hand in his pocket to put away the guilty fingers itching to tuck her hair behind her ear. ‘We’ll know for certain in no time.’

Sadly, he reflected not very long after that, standing across a glaring Lettie Sinclair in the Loyola Library, witches did make up the majority of those interested enough in occult history to be researching it at 8:00 a.m on a Sunday. He smiled politely, deciding to take this as an opportunity to mend bridges rather than a setback.

‘I wanted to apologize for my brother –‘

‘Oh, don't start!’

‘Excuse me?’ The witch gave him a baleful look and Elijah swallowed, confused by her hostility, and obscurely hurt without being entirely certain why. He cleared his throat, rallying, the young woman’s desperate quest for Malraux blood made it unlikely that she could afford to spurn powerful allies entirely: ‘I believe we are looking for the same thing -Madame LaLaurie-’

‘Sorry, that's wrong –but feel free to try again sometime.’ 

Elijah stared at her back, bemused, and wondering whether to take offense or not, then he shook his head. He couldn't let himself be distracted by a child no matter how inexplicable aggressive and surprisingly infuriating she was turning out to be...no. No, he would not follow her. What he needed was a compellable expert...

 

...or the closest thing available.

‘Are you wearing...plastic cups?’

She was. She was wearing a dress which appeared to be made out of ironed red party cups.

‘ABC party,’ she said shortly, looking at him with a frown.

‘...Literacy Benefit?’

‘Anything But Clothes. Did you want something?’

Why was every female in New Orleans suddenly incomprehensible and antagonistic today? His eyes narrowed slightly...Had Kol done something? Was the potato bag some sort of clue?

‘Hel-lo! Are you with the brain trust? I thought you had a question, or something. Wait, are you a cop? Because I take peyote as a part of a legal and recognized religious practice.’

‘I'm not a cop. Why would you think -?’

‘You're wearing a suit.’

‘...so?’

‘So it's the middle of the day and it's like a billion degrees.’

He considered this a moment then shook himself. Moving on.

‘I was told you were writing your thesis on Madame LaLaurie.’

‘Oh, yeah. Is this for another YouTube ghost documentary? Cause if that's what it is I have better things to do.’

He looked at the plastic bow in her hair.

‘Like...what?’

‘They're about to tap a keg in there.’

‘Well then maybe you could answer my questions fast.’

‘Fine, geeze. Cool it, okay?’ she said, making him realize that he had, in fact, lost his temper further than he’d intended. He shook his head, wondering what there was about this specific witch that could so easily frazzle him. ‘What do you want to know?’

He discarded the thoughts, determining to concentrate on the conversation at hand:

‘Do you have any information about the slaves that were mistreated or killed?’

‘Just transaction slips. When they were bought. When they bought their freedom. Not a lot of those.’

‘What about cause of death, for those who were...killed. Any commonalities?’

‘There's no way to know which ones were killed and which ones died. Only two reports for mistreatment were ever filed and neither of them held any kind of detail. Unlike the writings of the day, but it's impossible to determine the truth of that.’

‘Any trace of a witchcraft connection?’

‘...Uh...no? Why would you think that?’

‘An Irish woman in New Orleans in the days of Marie Laveau, not to mention the established connection between serial killing and an interest in the occult.’

‘It's not systematic.’

‘But it's not uncommon. And this is the City of Witches.’

‘This is the city of a lot of things. She tilted her head, her thick raven mane falling over her bare shoulder, lit up with blue by the stark light pouring in from the window -at a rather unfortunate angle for the continued health of one's sight. Elijah himself, with all his advantages of instant healing and supernaturally fast adjustments to stimuli was starting to get blinded and to see spots. We can draw plenty of conjectures about that but there's nothing offering any kind of proof.’

‘There must be something, perhaps something...incongruous or...occult symbolism...’

‘Well...there might be a little something but it's really not worth looking at.’

‘Please,’ he leaned in, ‘do tell.’

‘Honestly, I wouldn't even have mentioned it if you hadn't said occult. A few days ago, this kid comes to me and says if I want to know about LaLaurie I should check this out. That he's gotten it on a stake out at the house, channeling a spirit.’

‘A spirit?’

‘Yeah. Adrian something. I told him I wasn't buying, but he didn't want money for it. He said he believed I should have it. I don't even know why I didn't throw it away.’

‘Don't. Please, I'm...very interested. How much would you like for it?’

‘Uh...nothing? Like I said the kid just gave it to me. You can have it.’

 

 

Keelin came out for a fag and froze. The bird was there again. Staring at her. She swallowed hard.

Was it the same bird? Was it the same bird Dantrey scared away yesterday? Kim would have laughed. Her ex didn’t believe in magic or the supernatural. She thought it was all bullshit. Of course, Kim was gone, now. There was no one to laugh when Keelin jumped at shadows.

‘I’m not scared of a bird,’ she said to herself firmly.

‘Bird Cujo still following you around?’

She whirled around, glaring hotly at Martin who looked a lot less smug when faced with dark, blazing eyes. There was something about Keelin Malraux that was a bit to…wild to risk upsetting her. He wasn’t sure where the feeling came from exactly, Keelin was salt of the earth –she didn’t have a temper, or a nasty streak or a cross word for anyone. And yet…

‘You’re an asshole,’ she said rolling her eyes.

He grinned cheekily at her, and ignored the ridiculous part of him that felt like he’d dodged a bullet.

Or a mine.

 

 

‘Is it supposed to mean something?’ Asked Hayley, flipping it around, as though she’d see something else on there than a childishly drawn snake with a crown and keys if she looked at it under the right angle. She didn’t.

‘It's a spell,’ answered Elijah, as he divested himself of his jacket.

She blinked:

‘Are you sure? It looks like the drawing of a kid who shouldn't get out of a mental institute at the 18 year old mark.’

He pulled Grimoire after Grimoire off the shelves, stacking them neatly on the table:

‘They all do.’

Klaus woke up with a pounding headache, mouth dry, palate and sinuses burning with the smell of sugar that blanketed the city like a malevolent cloud. A wave of nausea hit him and he got up at full speed before stopping, clutching the colonnade of the bed so tight it splintered beneath his white knuckles, just to keep from throwing up, then in a moment he was in the bathroom.

Elijah and Hayley exchanged a worried look, and ran up the stairs.

‘Good god,’ said Elijah, wide eyed. He could hardly remember a time when any of his siblings had exhibited such symptoms of sickness apart from their suffering under werewolf venom, something which had not affected Klaus when they had first encountered one with poisonous bite over four hundred years prior, and must affect him even less now. To say Elijah was used to feeling useless would be an understatement, given that his avowed life goal was to bring about Niklaus’ redemption. It did not take away the sting, or the helplessness of it. Hayley, no doubt more used to dealing with throwing up companions, had sunk next to him in a moment, and was running a hand down his back and through his hair, murmuring soothingly.

‘Holy crap,’ said Jimson, who’d apparently gotten knocking and ringing the bell out of his system at some point that week. ‘I thought vampires didn’t get sick!’

‘Is everything okay?’ asked Hayley. They had not expected Jimson back before the evening, Elijah remembered, bar an emergency.

‘Is _he_ okay?’ countered Jimson worriedly. Elijah fought against the surprise and, perhaps, the slight sting that came along every time it was obvious how seamlessly and willingly Hayley’s pack seemed include his brother. A small, miserable part of him wondered whether Niklaus would not be all too happy to forget all about them with the wolves around to be what he had always wanted and which Elijah had tried so desperately to be –and apparently failed at, again and again, without any idea what he was doing wrong.

Klaus washed his mouth with water from the glass handed to him.

‘Apart from the fact that I feel like someone mixed icing sugar and rum, stuffed it up my nose and set it on fire, I’m just dandy,’ he said. It was such a poor and forced approximation of his usual snark that Hayley and Elijah immediately started fussing.

‘It’s the fucking smell,’ grumbled the hybrid, batting their hands away without much conviction.

Hayley and Elijah exchanged a worried, nervous glance over his head –they couldn’t smell anything –well, of course they could. Elijah’s age meant he could smell the kid who’d scraped his knee three blocks away, the chalk on his clothes, the Chicken MacNuggets on his hands, and werewolves didn’t have a mean sense of smell, either, especially with pregnancy hormones kicking in. But neither of them could smell what Klaus was smelling.

‘A spell?’

Elijah nodded slightly:

‘It could be any witch with a grudge.’

‘So any witch in New Orleans.’

‘…Yes, absolutely.’

‘Right,’ said Klaus drolly.’ Witches hate me, it’s hilarious.’

Neither of the other two offered an answer to that, although their expression suggested they weren’t, in fact, finding it the least bit funny, Elijah opened his mouth but his brother waved off his concern:

‘Enough with the mothering, already’ he groaned, climbing unsteadily to his feet, Hayley wrapped an arm around his waist and everyone pretended not to notice when he buried his nose in her hair. He mumbled something:

‘Right!’ said Hayley, turning her gaze back to Jimson, ‘Was something the matter?’

It took a minute for him to remember why he had come, as he was still watching Hayley and Klaus with a mix of worry and satisfaction which couldn’t but be noticed by Elijah. His expression of worry deepened exponentially:

‘Dani’s gone.’

Klaus looked up blearily:

‘What?’

Hayley’s eyes had gone wide with horror:

‘What do you mean, gone?’ Her hands convulsed around Klaus shoulder, like she needed him to hold her up, now.

‘She disappeared into the night,’ said Jimson, his voice was kind, and apologetic, and the worry was obvious in his blue eyes.

The pounding in Klaus’ head got louder, beating at his temples as his eyes started to burn. He freed himself from Hayley’s hold with some difficulty, snarling wordlessly. He smelt of wolf like never before, his hair was mussed and his eyes wild.

‘Niklaus?’

‘That bloody smell is giving me a migraine, so whoever is making the infernal concoction emitting that smell I will find them, I will compel them, then I will rip out their lungs just to be sure.’ 

‘What about Dani?’ asked Hayley, her expression betrayed.

‘Fine, I'll get a useful witch, too.’

With that, he was gone, and Hayley was unlikely to understand how much it meant that his brother had bothered to address her question at all. 

‘We have a better chance to convince Cami to sway her friend into helping us without my brother there,’ said Elijah softly.

Hayley’s face hardened into determination:

‘Let’s go.’

 

 

Detective Kennit looked at the sprays of blood on the tomb of Marie Laveau, thoroughly unimpressed:

'Well,’ he said at last, ‘At least it's not pink Day-Glo.'

He’d been a rookie in 2013 when some poor, brave, twisted soul had painted the vault with pink latex paint. As far as a first case in Defilement of Property and desecration went it was…bizarre.

‘Welcome to NOPD,’ had said LaPierre, yawning widely, his fetid breath particularly hard to stand in the oppressive, still heat, heavy as it was with paint fumes. ‘Just wait till you start getting calls from the tourists complaining about ghost racket.’

He shook the memory away, eyes settling on the bodies, the flies. It never got better.

'I wanna pee,' said LaPierre, yawning widely. Kennit thanked whoever had gotten it through his thick skull that he needed to brush his fucking teeth, his phone rang.

‘Kennit.’

‘Hey,’ said Devin Mac Airt, obviously eating something, ‘Got your dead tourists at a B&B in the Marigny.’

‘You’ve tracked them down already?’ blinked Kennit, impressed. He’d only just sent the tech a text with pictures of the victim’s IDs in it.

‘No need, just found’em on Facebook, no privacy setting,’ he sounded disapproving.

‘So anyone could have known where they were.’

‘Anyone and their neighbor.’

Kennit winced:

‘Great.’

 

 

In the window of a second hand shop, a TV fluttered to life, to a scene of an old timey movie. It took Keelin a second to identify Hitchcock's "Birds" : 'Oh, won't you come,' begged Cathy Brenner from the screen, thought the television was inside behind glass, the sound carried out onto the street, 'Won't you please come?'

She looked from the bird to the TV and back. She knew from experience -way too much experience- that deciding this was impossible and burying her head in the sand wouldn't help at all, when something like this happened. But hell if she knew what to do.

 

 

Vincent stared down at the vampire sprawled senseless over the tiles of the terrace.

'Do I want to know what this guy's deal is?' he asked with a sigh.

'I stole the werewolves he was torturing,' said Lettie, playing with her hair with a thoughtful expression which boded ill for the unfortunate victim -although given the fellow's past times, Vincent wasn't particularly bothered. 'Plus the one vampire,' she added. 'I really should call Bernice.'

'Let's get him inside,' said Vincent, ' who knew where this was going. 'Should we invite him in?'

'Not that it wouldn't be funny to get him in there without one, but I actually have a better alternative to that.'

Vincent smiled fondly:

'Of course you do.'

Lettie preened:

'Yep. Anyway, as you know, invitations are final. Better not give them at all if you can avoid it. If you have to let a vampire in, there's a...it's like an exception clause. The equivalent of sunlight jewelry, except it's a spell, not a dark object, and it's finite, same as a protection spell -one time only. It was made up by a male witch in Copenhagen -let me tell you that dude could sing like an angel, he was a less than saintly witch, though. One of the few genuine devil worshippers I encountered. He did sacrifices to some creepy ass Lovecraftian monster in the water. Just evil doers, but still -creepy. Talented asshole, though.' She pulled out a thing sheet of lead, muttered something where he distinguished the name Lucian, in a language which sounded like...greek, maybe? rolled up the sheet and pushed a nail in. He felt the warmth of magic rising and cresting before it fell.

'You'll have to teach me that one.'

Lettie looked surprised, then pleased, dimples fluttering in her cheeks. Vincent watched them in fascination; he had the urge to press his lips there, where it was all Kol. Instead, he slugged the unconscious vampire over his shoulder and carried him inside.

'There was a time in my life,' he said as he dropped the guy off on the tiled floor, 'when this was a laundry room.'

'It's still a laundry room,' protested Lettie, throwing up a few ingredients in a teeny, tiny cauldron -which he was almost sure she'd bought because she thought cauldrons had some amped up witch factor . The vampire came to with a gasp, for a brief second he tried to get away with all his might before settling down just as suddenly, watching them with dark, still eyes. He was reminded unsettlingly of Elijah; what little he had seen of the brunette Original had seemed as perturbing and alien. Some vampires were all but human in the way they acted and move. This guy, like Elijah, was too still one second and too fast the next, he wondered how old he was and whether it mattered, certainly Elijah’s nasty little blond brother didn’t have that almost reptilian quality, even when he was standing still it felt like something wild was bracing to pounce on you. He turned his attention away from the vampire and back to Lettie, ignoring the irony of the statement.

Did she have those attitudes as a vampire? he wondered, then recalled Angelique’s memories. Kol Mikaelson had looked dangerous, as dangerous as his siblings, if not more, but like Klaus, it was more like a tiger had suddenly dropped in front of you and was deciding whether or not to have you for dinner. This was oddly comforting.

'...A laundry room people didn't torture vampires in,' he specified.

From her expression, she found the concept baffling. He wondered that that should make him smile, before a more worrying thought occurred to him:

‘Did you take your anti-psychotics this morning?’ She tilted her head thoughtfully:

‘...I think so.’

‘Ok, let me check. It's probably a good idea for you to take them before you start torturing anyone.’

‘You're right, said the girl seriously. I don't want to get carried away and do anything unsavory.’

The vampire stared, suddenly vividly human and incredulous:

‘Really?’

Apparently, they kept track of the pill intake on a Wild Magnolia Calendar. Of course, Lucian thought. Why not?

‘Why am I here?’

It was a valid question. To say he’d underestimated the witch would be ridiculously overstating it. Obviously she could have ripped his heart with a flick of her fingers, and even if she wasn’t the kind to feel comfortable doing that with magic –which, if he had had a doubt before the antipsychotics comment –and he hadn’t had any –he sure as hell wouldn’t now –she could have staked him while he was unconscious. Or her boyfriend could have. He regretted asking the question immediately, because the girl started bouncing on the ball of her feet like a five years old with an expression of delight on her face. The whole attitude was disturbingly familiar, though he couldn’t quite place how, and it evoked more dread than he’d felt in a while.

'I got a peak at my mother's mind,’ she said quite, quite cheerfully. ‘And, through her, at my aunt's.’ Clearly she didn’t intend to give him additional context. ‘Turns out, back in the day, the two of them were two peas in a pod and that bond never went away –and I didn’t even know that I had an aunt. I tell you, man, what I saw in there, the lies, the magic, you can't even imagine. And I've been dying to try them on. Unfortunately, my aunt is not a very nice person, so I couldn’t just start using them on innocent people, ‘cause I don’t do that. I mean, I used to do that, but I’m medicated, now. Plus, it’s…wrong, or something. Anyways, Vincent thinks it’s wrong, so that’s that. Oh, uh, if you hadn’t figured it out, yet, this is going to hurt.' She paused. Thought. 'A lot.'

Lucian grimaced.

'Great.'

Then it was mostly screaming.

The phone rang in another room.

'Didi called,' the boyfriend said, edging inside with some food.

The girl pulled her fingers from where they'd sunk through his skin and cranium into her brain like a freaking Hollywood supervillain and Lucian panted, each breath like a thousand knives going through his raw throat. 

‘Really? She was here just yesterday, is she okay? Is that sweater hers? Cause I put it in the wash already, it had Roux on it.’

‘She’s fine –and I think the sweater is Martha’s.’

‘Oh, yeah, I remember she came in with it –ugh, pink is so not her color.’

‘She did look a little…yellow…’ said Vincent thoughtfully, before shaking his head: ‘Actually, she was calling because Germaine is thinking of going off and the coven was hoping you could be persuaded to become an elder.’ 

'Me?' She blinked.

'Her?' said Lucian at the same time in incredulous horror.

The boyfriend raised an eyebrow, looking distinctly unimpressed and faintly threatening. Lucian didn't usually scare easy but in the face of someone who could apparently handle crazier Harley Quinn with ease he was inclined to be weary. That crazy bitch was looking at Aurora in the rearview mirror. And Kol...okay, maybe not Kol. Although he'd bet the two would be real neck to neck if the cow got off her medication.

Someone knocked on the door, and okay, if that was ‘Didi’ showing up to crown Crazy McBonkers while he was hanging off his wrists in here, there was gonna be hell to pay.

'I'll get it,' said Vincent, kissing her cheek without thinking. He opened the door.

'Hi,' said Klaus.

'Go to hell,' said Vincent, slamming it in the hybrid's face.

Klaus waited a second, taking in the place. There was a garden on the other side, he could smell a cocktail of herbs he was intimately familiar with from Kol's ventures into herbal concoctions, and the leftover scents from a barbecue which had taken place the night before -tuna steaks and beef steaks, ribs and grilled tomatoes and seafood -gator, too, alcohol and juice, soda and root beer and the lingering smells of a dozen different people -female perfumes and male colognes, make up and nail polish, herb stained fingers, animal blood lingering on hands beneath homemade and store bought soaps, deodorants, expensive aging creams, cottons, jeans, linens...all with that underlying tang that said witch. He shook his head. The whole thing was so unbelievably _'burb_. He knocked again.

Vincent took a deep breath and opened the door. Again. Klaus smiled cheerfully at him. He looked terrible:

'Hi.'

Vincent sighed:

'Hi.'

'Can I -?'

'No.'

The door slammed again. This, Niklaus decided, was progress. He waited another few seconds. And knocked.

'You really are siblings, aren't you?' asked the witch tiredly. The hybrid smiled winningly:

'We really are.'

The witch sighed again.

'You can't come in.'

Klaus nodded, unsurprised:

'Can she come out?'

'Hold on.' He closed the door and his footsteps went deeper into the houses, cutting off abruptly into a vivid burnt sage wall of odor. A privacy spell, then. He wondered whether this was actually about privacy or if they were up to something before realizing the stupidity of the thought. It was  _Kol_.

Vincent Griffith came back:

'Sorry,' he said, inflections indicating he was repeating Kol's words, 'we're torturing a vampire in the laundry room, right now, could you come back later?'

'...it is kind of important. Child's life at stake and all...'

The door closed. The steps were hurried this time, the witch came back faster:

'We'll have to stop by for Callas,' he said.

A second mater, Kol was slipping out of the house, in a very pretty sundress, with a child in her arms.

She got in the back of the car and didn't look at him once.

Klaus sighed and decided that, since opening up a vein in half the neighborhood for his brother -sister?- to have as an apology feast, he would pay for Callas until she was over it. (It didn’t work right away, but she was certainly more amenable after they’d dropped by The Old Coffee Pot and nearly razed their kitchen like ravening animals.)

 

 

‘Hello, ma’am. New Orleans PD.’

‘Oh, dear,’ blinked the woman. She was a dumpy little woman, with caramel skin creased with smile lines and incredibly green eyes. She seemed to be in her mid-seventies. ‘Has something happened?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Could we come in?’

Bed and Breakfasts were rooms in private residences; this one was obviously on the upper end of the scale. The room had an old New Orleans look and was handsomely appointed with antiques and exposed bricks.

‘They were such a nice couple,’ said the small woman, going through the keys. ‘They said their friends put together the money for their honeymoon.’

Kennit winced. Newlyweds. God.

‘Looks like those folks weren’t fighting,’ LaPierre grinned at Nina who’d just strolled in with Simon and Kelly in toe –from the look of the young man, he hadn’t yet had any of the seven cups of coffee he needed to be functional after rolling out of bed (usually not his own). He did not even pick up on Nina’s comment, an event rare enough to spell out the end of time itself as far as Kennit was concerned.

‘Here, Kelly, why don’t you take Mrs Rochebrune to the station and see if she can officially get the identifications out of the way?’ He suggested.

Kelly made a noise which may have been agreement or an aborted snore.

‘He’s not driving, right?’

Nina snorted:

‘Please, we do not need the publicity. Devin’s stayed by the car to make sure he does not put a single finger on the driving wheel.’

‘Thank god for that.’

She laughed, moving to process the scene; Simon was already going through one of the half packed luggage, picking out pewter charms and artisan jewelry with a distinctly gothic look:

‘This is like shopping for my niece’s birthday.’

‘I got Blackened Voodoo Lager, cigars, and a zippo,’ she looked at the plastic bag which held those last two items, “Reverend Zombie’s House of Voodoo”. ‘Hot Sauce from Transylvania, Louisiana…’

Simon’s suitcase was far heavier with souvenirs, from Love Potion number 9 and plastic made in China voodoo doll keychains to Goat’s Milk Voodoo Soaps and New Orleans Voodoo Tarot:

‘Looks like they’ve been through every gothic and occult shop in Nawlins,’ he lifted a Do What I Say Candle: ‘Think the newly minted husband knew about this?’

‘Alright pack it all up,’ sighed Kennit. ‘We’ll check it out at the precinct.’

 

_I'm slipping into the deep end_  
I'm in over my head  
I can't catch my breath  
I'm slipping into the deep end  
Feel the current within  
I can't help, I give in

 

 

There was a flutter of wings and the white birds perched right outside of her window.

The phone rang. She picked it up, her eyes never leaving the bird.

'Hello?'

'Oh, won't you come?' begged Cathy Brenner, at the end of the line. 'Won't you please come?'

'Come where?!'

The last thing she was expecting was a professional voice at the end of the line, saying 'hold on'. After a minute of elevator music, the voice was back.

'I'm afraid, no one is answering at Fauline's Home, New Orleans, would you like for me to try again?'

'No,' said Keelin, throat dry. 'No, that's fine, thanks.' She disconnected the call. 'Is that what you want?'

The bird ruffled its feathers, looking bored.

'I think we're in real trouble,' crackled the radio behind her. 'I don't know how this started or why, but I know it's here and we'd be crazy to ignore it...' 

Watch me, she wanted to say, fucking watch me! But what good would it do? She knew more about magic than she'd ever wanted to. About the viciousness of moonlight, about cracking bones and the burn of wolfsbane. There was only ever one way to go -accept it and move on.

She called in sick and bought a ticket to New Orleans.

 

 

‘Sage?’

‘Not quite.’

Blue skies -no, eyes. They were eyes. His throat burned pleasantly, and his head was slightly foggy, as it would after a bottle of something strong. _Blue skies, olive trees. His last pleasant memories before centuries of anguish._

_They call it Grappa. How bloody fantastic is that?_

‘...Kol?’

‘...That's a slightly disturbing leap of logic...’

Finn started awake.

‘Wh –‘ he stared at the youth before him ‘…Who?’

‘I would've thought you would be familiar with my name, Finn Mikaelson. After all, you've been using it for some time, now.’

‘Kaleb.’

The blond grinned:

‘Hello, darling...’

Finn winced at the endearment:

‘Please don't call me that. That's just...’

Kaleb tilted his head, amused malice shining in his blue eyes:

‘Painful reminder? Of Sage? Or Kol, maybe?’

Finn scowled: 

‘Not in the way you make it sound.’

‘No?’ asked the blond airily, tone modulated with breezy disbelief. Finn snorted angrily:

‘Believe me, if ever anyone in our family saw Kol in such a filthy sinful light, it wasn't me.’

Kaleb grinned, lifting an eyebrow.

‘Now that sounds like a story worth hearing, if only we had the time. Sadly we have to deal with keeping you safe, first.’

He did sound genuinely saddened by the fact, noted Finn, finding something about him thoroughly disturbing. It was the eyes, he realized. They didn’t look particularly different than the ones looking back at him in the mirror, which, since he had spent the last eight hundred years at least tortured body and soul and had no illusions about the state of his own sanity which was, to put it mildly, dented -much as he was quite capable of functioning efficiently and humanely. He watched the blond witch warily:

‘What do you care about my safety?’

Kaleb looked unimpressed –unimpressed, inhuman, careless and flat in a way Elijah could hardly match.

‘Seeing as you're a squatter in my very mortal, very breakable body, I care a great deal, actually.’

‘Right,’ Finn considered the situation, sorted through the hundreds of pressing questions to elucidate and asked: ‘Hey, where d'you get that peach juice thing?’

 

 

‘She’s not here?’

Cami folded her arms, looking at them coolly:

‘Vincent came by. Asked her to come back home.’

‘That was fast,’ blinked Hayley. The blond glared at her, and she winced: ‘Look, I know you’re angry and you have all the reasons in the world to be, but a little girl is missing. Dani, she's five years old. I really think your friend would want to help her if she wasn't blinded by hatred. She’s done it before.’

‘Justifiable hatred,’ pointed out Cami, picking up the phone anyway. Then she stilled, looking between them warily:

‘Where is Klaus?’

Hayley looked nervous.

‘He...took off –Said he was getting a witch.’

‘Yes,’ said Elijah offhandedly, picking at his sleeve. ‘He is probable traumatizing a Harvest girl as we speak and as we know Davina best...’

Cami blanched, anger sparkling in her blue eyes:

‘How is it, that you are capable of convincing yourself that you actually have any sort of honor? You must have glasses with a real special taint because I can't see a trace of it.’

Elijah stiffened and straightened up, dark eyes blazing, but whatever he was about to say was interrupted by Klaus' amused voice:

'Calm yourself, brother. We have all the witches we need to find our littlest wolf, no threats necessary.'

Indeed he had come with the two witches from the night before. With one small addition -the man was holding a little boy in his arms, who favored him enormously, and who was holding a purple sippy cup adorned with a carton hamster with bulging cheeks.

'Cami!' beamed the girl, hugging the blond cheerfully. Cami hugged her back automatically. Elijah was surprised, after her fierce defense of the girl, to see unease and uncertainty in her expression. It eased away as the girl chattered: 'that bloody rude fucktard didn't distress you, did he?’ She pulled back and looked at the blond: ‘He did!’ She glared hotly at Elijah: ‘For fuck's sake!’ Immediately, she was back to talking to Cami, quite earnestly and incredibly fast, he blinked at the familiarity of it. ‘Do you want me to make him smack himself in the face, because I can totally do that!'

'You really have no brain to mouth filter, do you?' said Hayley incredulously.

Klaus and the male witch snorted at the same time:

'No.'

'They've been ganging up on me,' Lettie told Cami, a little disbelievingly, 'did not see that coming.'

‘We should hurry,’ noted Klaus. ‘Do you wish to come with us, Cami?’ he asked courteously. Something in his attitude was inexplicably changed, warmer and less warm all at once –or maybe just less intimate?

‘None of them can stay mad at you, can they?’

His eyes crinkled with a smile:

‘You intend to stay upset with me on darling Lettie’s behalf?’ He’d figured it out, too, then.

‘Someone should,’ she said, softened despite herself because his words were so artless and oddly happy suddenly.

‘Perhaps you do not quite understand…’

_The pages opening on her computer, one after the other. Every pill her friend took -anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication._

_Lettie, laughing:_

_‘I used to be quite wild, you know. Drove my siblings up the wall. Of course that’s all behind me now. I mean, I have a baby, for god’s sake and a…’ she tucked a hair behind her ear, self-conscious and ridiculously pleased with the thought, ‘well, a…Vincent…’_

_‘Any thoughts?’ Asked Klaus with that charming smile, as though he hadn’t just confessed to slaughtering entire families._

_‘You want a thought? You have control issues –not that you’re out of control, as Elijah believes. Your issue is that you can’t control everyone else._

 

‘I understand more than you think.’

Lettie hugged her hard:

‘Oh!’ she said, just remembering, ‘I loaned the van, but it wasn’t free today, because a kid was having a birthday party, so I’ll pop by for the house then, and then we could go and see a movie? And brunch, I could kill for brunch.’ She looked hurriedly at Vincent: ‘But not literally!’

The male witch smiled indulgently:

‘C’mon, the little girl may not have much time.’

‘Okay! Around ten thirty?’ she asked Cami.

‘Sure, said the blond, unsure how to feel. Lettie was unchanged, it seemed. She’d expected to catch something about her that suggested…something…but…

She closed the door behind them:

‘See you then.’ 

She thought about calling her uncle, going so far as to pick up the phone, but she couldn’t make herself dial the number, paradoxical resentment flaring up.

Lettie was as Lettie had ever been yet some essential trust had been lost and she couldn’t help but wonder at her motivations –all the time. Why had she befriended her? Had she really? Or was she just…

Kol Mikaelson.

She put the phone down. It wasn’t fair, and she knew it. Her uncle was only trying to protect her and this…This was something he needed to know, surely. But she couldn’t make herself call.

As if to mock her, the phone rang. She blinked. The number was vaguely familiar, but nothing she could recognize off the top of her head:

‘Hello?’

 

 

_Like light in my veins,_  
_Darkness is sinking_  
 _Darkness is sinking me_  
 _Commanding my soul_  
 _I am under the surface_  
 _Where the blackness burns beneath_

 

 

‘Why am I here? How does that keep me safe?’ The conversation had being going on and on, and in circles, and apart from the fact that Kaleb seemed to be an infuriating mix of his three brothers mashed together –to the point where Finn was starting to wonder whether he wasn’t a product of his imagination –and a monstrous headache, he hadn’t taken much out of it. Kaleb looked irritated with him:

‘You can’t face the Hollow now, not with _its_ integrity so compromised.’

‘Compromised...’ echoed Finn slowly.

‘Like breached firewalls,' elaborated Kaleb, looking, for all intents of purpose, like he was trying to be _helpful_. 'Or a biscuits in hot tea. Got...soggy and mushy and started falling apart.’

‘You're talking about my _soul_.’

The blond snorted:

‘Hardly, it has too little metaphysical integrity to resist anything, least of all the Hollow.’

‘I have integrity,’ protested Finn, fury rolling off of him.

The witch rolled his eyes, about as impressed with him as he might have been with a particularly noisy fly:

‘I'm not talking about morals, dumbass, I'm talking about solidity. You have none. Your Mum broke you into minute pieces then rebuilt you how she wanted you.’ 

‘She did not.’

Kaleb started laughing, his voice rich and amused. The he caught sight of Finn's face and stopped:

‘Wait, you're serious?’ He asked, with genuine, incredulous surprised.

‘Of course I am,’ snapped Finn, a mix of confusion and anger bubbling in his throat. His eyes were stinging, and he didn't know why.

‘Wow. Just...wow.’ Kaleb shook his head disbelieving and a little pitying. ‘Look,’ he said reasonably (this tone, Finn knew from experience, never boded well), ‘you're possessing me and  _I_  pity  _you_. Now if you think about that  _really_  hard, there's a lesson in there even you might be able to puzzle out.’

 

 

‘Who spends their honeymoon getting pictures with the Voodoo Couple, and browsing at,’ he pulled out a business card, ‘Esoterica Occult Goods, Tools for the Beginner and the Advanced worker of Magick –with a k.’ He flipped the card over and read “Keep Me –I’m Lucky.” ‘…Never mind.’

Devin, who was going through the couple’s cellphones and digital camera, snorted:

‘Looks like the Mrs purchased a Voodoo App for her Android. Bet Marie Laveau never foresaw Apps.’

‘Hey, I have that!’ protested Nina.

‘Oh, come _on_!’ groaned Simon, ‘You really think you can damage someone with some words just because they’re in a funny language, or said in a certain way?’

She narrowed her eyes at him.

‘You were popular in High School, weren’t you?’

‘What’s that to do with anything?’

Devin snorted:

‘You wouldn’t be asking that question if you’d ever been put down by a cheerleader.’ He glanced at Nina: ‘Who was it for you?’

‘Brenna Lehane. I burned an anointed candle to get her out of my face, the next day, she had mono.’

‘Was she promiscuous?’ asked Nanh Gia, from the doorway, frowning slightly.

‘She was a cheerleader.’

‘…I’m gonna move past that cliché upon which I decline to comment –‘

‘A _blond_ cheerleader,’ she pressed.

He ignored her:

‘ –and point out that the girl probably didn’t get it from a candle.’

‘Depends who was licking it before hand,’ grinned Kelly.

‘Look,’ said Nina, ‘the pervert’s awake!’

‘…Brenna Lehane wasn’t blond!’ Blinked Lloyd, looking up from the couple’s expense.

‘Yeah, she was,’ said Nina distractedly as she turned back to Nanh Gia: ‘How can you not believe in magic? You go to the Santeros, like, twice a month!’

‘My Grand-mother’s a scary woman, that doesn’t mean I’m a Hechicero.’

‘She was a redhead,’ insisted Lloyd.

Nina glared at him:

‘Strawberry _Blond_.’

‘That’s not blond!’

‘Then why is ‘blond’ in the name, huh?’

Kennit rubbed his forehead, feeling the start of a tension headache. Putting childhood friends in one team? Whose brilliant idea had _that_ been?

‘Can we get off the subject of your goddamned high school cheerleader?’ Hearing the normally calm detective swear shut everyone up immediately. ‘Nanh Gia, what have you got?’

‘Vampire,’ said the legist bluntly.

‘Come on, really?’ said Simon, disbelievingly.

The medic shrugged:

‘Human Teeth except for the fang shaped canines. It’s not an uncommon alteration within the vampire subculture.’

‘You’re saying a human can actually do this?’ asked Nina, looking up at the crime scene pictures pinned on the board.

‘…Absolutely not. I’m saying the only teeth marks we have are human. I think we are looking at three possibilities here: vampire fanatic, anti-vampire fanatic, or someone who’s using a sensationalized signature to disguise a motive that has nothing whatsoever to do with vampires, either way, no human can do this, even taking into account alterations, or material, the size of the jaw, the lack of width and strength in the human neck makes it impossible. We may be looking for some kind of machine, here.’

‘A machine?’ asked Kennit, frowning.

‘That’s all I can come up with.’

 

 

‘Hayley!’

Mary got up with some difficulty. The same heavy lidded, disgusted exhaustion which marked Klaus’ face a little too becomingly with vulnerability could be seen quite plainly on hers, but the relief on her face at the sight of the witches was obvious.

‘Thank you,’ she told Lettie, ‘For this and for your help in the Bayou, it is much appreciated.’

‘The Tremé witches never had any issues with the Crescent Pack. I do, but that’s just family bias. My brother’s pack and yours don’t get along too well.’

‘Gray, Upuaut or Malraux?’

‘You had issues with Malraux wolf?’

‘When they first came down from Canada on the wave of the Acadian migration, and started encroaching on our territory, there were some issues that didn’t end too well. Not that many of them left to carry on a grudge now, of course…’ She swallowed with difficulty, looking a little unsteady on her feet and Hayley frowned:

‘Are you okay?’

‘Aunt Mary!’ Jackson ran to her, and caught her elbow gently, sitting her down on a cot.

‘Is she -?’

‘Sugar spell sickness,’ he told Hayley, ‘Fucking witches!’

‘Sugar spell sickness?’

‘Don’t mind him, dear,’ said Marie, smiling wanly, ‘he worries too much. Spell sickness is hardly a new affliction in these parts.’

But Hayley was too agitated to heed her:

‘What is it? Is it dangerous? Because Klaus…’

Mary’s eyes shot to the blond hybrid in a snap and she struggled back up.

‘Aunt Mary!’ protested Jackson, ‘You should –‘

She quieted him with a wave of her hand and looked into a slightly befuddled Klaus’ eyes.

‘Yes…’she muttered, ‘That’d be right…Hah!’ They startled at her exclamation. She was smiling broadly. ‘Fantastic!’

‘Are you having a stroke?’ Enquired Klaus with his usual tact.

Lettie, as concerned with informed consent as ever, sprayed something in both their faces which made them sneeze. Klaus’ eyes widened happily:

‘That horrid smell! It’s gone!’ he sniffed the air and grinned: ‘I feel great! –You know I thought I was about to drop the whole day.’

‘I’m so glad you were driving the car,’ said Vincent mildly.

 

 

Josh frowned slightly.

‘I can hear him inside.’

‘Uncle!’ cried Cami, banging on the door, ‘Uncle!’

‘I don't think he's awake. His heartbeat didn't even change a tiny bit, which, when someone sounds like they're trying to bring down your door, it would...’

‘He's not answering the phone,’ she said worriedly, trying it for the billionth time since Mrs Adlemen had called.

‘Okay.’ The young vampire grabbed a solid hold of the doorknob, turned and pushed. 

‘Hell, that stings,’ he winced, pulling his hand back from the invisible ward standing between any vampire and a house they hadn't been invited in.

‘Come in,’ said Cami reflexively.

He took a step, then shook his head:

‘Sorry, you don't own it. I got nothing. Maybe we should call someone for back up. Davina says your new cook is kinda witchy.’

‘Davina's heard about Lettie?’ asked Cami, a little worried about that. Davina hadn’t fared to well with Mikaelsons so far –and that included Marcel, however much he may love her. She wondered how he was getting on. He hadn’t done anything since the stunt he had pulled during the Fête des Bénédictions –her uncle had been multiple counts of not thrilled, but then most of the people who had been killed had been human…well, that and however many of them were infiltrated untriggered Guerraras. This whole thing was getting distinctly James Bond, funny how unglamorous it was turning out to be in real life.

‘Yeah, witch helpin' out the Mikaelsons of their own free will...I think there's like a hate club, or something.’ He shrugged, looking unimpressed.

 

 

‘Why do I keep waking up here?’ asked Finn tiredly, the surroundings were a little different from those he’d been waking up in –usually by being threatened. It looked like a different house, like a different…time, but it was unmistakably the same lawn.

‘My family magic runs strong, here. Drawing from it helps me hold on. I don’t want to go under again while you walk around in my body playing witch Hitler. And by the way, genocide in a German witch's body? Are you stigmatizing on purpose? I'm warning you now, if you start growing a pencil moustache on my face and dye my hair black, your family's going to be the least of your problem.’

 

 

He wasn't waking up.

‘His heart's beating fine,’ called out Josh, from the entrance. Cami couldn't help but feel bad. She hadn't talked to Josh in ages yet he'd come as soon as she'd called and used his vampire strength to ram the door open, no questions asked. 

‘Maybe he was drugged?’ She asked, watching Kieran’s senseless body worriedly.

‘Nah, I've been living in New Orleans for over a year, now, I can tell when someone smells like drugs, he's clean’ -he frowned. ‘Hold on...’ He sniffed: ‘Do you smell that?’

‘No, what?’

‘Smells like uh...I don't know like rose, kind of, but the stems, not the flowers. But not really, I...something with thorns, like...’

‘Briar?’

‘Yeah, like that! What?’ It took him a few minutes to link deep sleep and briar but when he did his eyes widened:

‘You don't think -?’

Her uncle groaned and rolled awake making both of them sigh with relief, the priest blinked, heavy with sleep and with the strange taste in his mouth:

'Wh- Cami?'

'Oh thank god. You wouldn't wake up.'

'What?'

'One of the women at the Church called and said that you hadn't shown up for the morning service. You wouldn't answer your phone...and when I came in you wouldn't answer the door.' He got up, alarmed now, as much by her account as with the vitality suddenly running through his and the taste in his mouth. A glint caught his eye and he stared in horror at the key on his bedside table.

'That was around my neck,' he said. 'Someone took it.'

'And brought it back?' blinked Josh. 'Who would do that?'

‘Is that the key that Francesca wanted?’

Kieran nodded, looking at the key under every angle. It seemed unchanged.

‘I believe anyone who would do something like that would do it so I wouldn’t notice anything amiss. He looked at Cami regretfully. ‘You’re not leaving this city, are you?’

She looked back defiantly and he nodded:

‘Then it’s time I introduce you to our family’s legacy.’

‘Guess that’s my cue,’ mumbled Josh.

‘Hey!’ called Cami, ‘Want to have a pow-wow tonight? Watch dumb movies and talk about boys?’

He perked up:

‘Yeah?’

‘Eight.’

‘You got it!’ he beamed before suddenly being gone in that unsettling way vampires seemed to master the moment they first woke.

Cami grinned.

Once some of Dani’s possessions were procured, it was a matter of seconds for the spell to work. Mary, who had seen enough magic at work to know that even the simplest spell took more fuss than this, eyed the witch carefully. They piled into cars, drove there, poured out of the cars. Dani was sitting down, looking up at the (creepy) house interestedly.

‘Smells like sweets,’ she informed them when they got to her.

Klaus eyed the familiar building.

‘Sweets?’

‘Like gingerbread, and sugar pills and icing.’

‘That's ominous,’ said Klaus.

‘You think?’ asked Jackson ironically, eyes on the cut off doll head planted on one of the spiked heads of the wrought iron fence.

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Hayley, who had a slightly better grasp of Klaus’ perception of what constituted ominousness and didn’t think that was it.

‘Come on!’ exclaimed the blond. ‘First there's talk of witches eating children, and now a gingerbread house? All we need is a German tune at geierstunde and this is a theme party.’

‘Okay, one, I don't know what that word means –‘

‘It's the "Hour of Spirits", explained Elijah helpfully. In certain areas of Germany, it's the hour between 11 p.m. and midnight. They believe it to be particularly propitious for magic and divination.’

‘- Two,’ Hayley went on, ignoring his contribution, ‘I don't think that's funny.’

‘No, but someone with a messed up sense of humor might. Or someone with a particular conception of Karma.’ 

‘You think Kol or Finn did this?’ frowned Elijah. ‘Or Mother?’

‘I think Kol might find it hilarious to scare the bejeezus out of us and get in a cheap shot while he'd at it,’ said Klaus, casting a side glance Lettie’s way.

‘A cheap shot?’ Blinked Hayley.

‘This is where I locked up his witch lover in 1914,’ he explained, ‘when they were planning to move against us.’

‘You give yourself too much credit,’ said the witch flatly. ‘As usual.’

‘Aj usual,’ contributed the baby around the beak of his Hamtaro sippy cup.

‘Or maybe this has nothing to do with your family at all,’ said Mary, who’d come along despite Jackson’s protests, ‘This ol' place is where the nine covens lock up every witch that's too messed up and too dangerous to be handled any other way.’

Elijah eyed the house carefully:

‘Given the fact that Celeste's...interesting practices only got her shunned, I'm curious as to what it takes to get in there,’ noted Elijah. 

‘At a guess, this Bissage practise Jackson called Hayley about is one sure qualifier.’

Lettie and Vincent blinked in concert then glanced at each other. He lifted an eyebrow, she touched her upper lip, his lips twitched, once, twice and they both suddenly decided that the architecture looked very interesting. Charlie gurgled happily. Klaus narrowed his eyes at them.

Mary snorted:

'I'll say.'

Lettie pulled out her little perfume bottle and sprayed it in Dani’s face. The little girl sneezed then blinked:

‘It’s gone.’

‘Great,’ said the witch. ‘Does that mean we’re done? Cause I’m hungry.’

Klaus discretely herded her and Vincent away without attracting too much attention and activated the 'privacy device' she’d had given him earlier, mellowed out from a large number of callas, mumbling something unsavory about Elijah. Apparently, Kol and little Charlie were watching the Incredibles. And Spy Kids, whatever the fuck that was. It was that Comte de St Germain thing, all over again.

'What did you do?'

'What?' protested Kol, 'why would you think I -' she caught her brother's look. Alright, fine, it was my spell. I was in a hurry, okay? It was just one measly sacrifice, what are you getting so bent out of shape about?'

'Measly?'

'Well, sacrifice is always more potent when the life has value beyond itself. When it's loved.'

'You sacrificed a child?' asked Klaus, wondering why he was so disturbed by the thought. They had done worse, all of them -Kol in particular, had gone to lengths for ritual purposes which...

'A Chihuahua.'

'A Chihuahua,' repeated Klaus dumbly.

'That little asshole shat in my flowers for the last time. Why would anyone want one of the little turds, anyway? They're like tinier coyotes with rabies, except a thousand times dumber and a million times uglier.'

Klaus gaped:

'We've established the need to bring up the Chihuahua issue with Dr Megève,' said Vincent. 

‘Oh,’ said Klaus. ‘Well that’s…good…’

‘Is this really it?’ asked Hayley, slightly unnerved by the anticlimactic end to the day’s excitement.

‘Just in time for dinner,’ said Jimson cheerfully.

 

 

_It's getting close_  
I lose control  
It's taking over  
It's getting close  
I lose control  
It's taking over

 

 

They parked in front of an utterly unremarkable apartment complex, and mounted the stairs –after Kieran had saluted the landlord and introduced Cami.

‘I helped raise funds to restore this place after Katrina,’ Kieran explained to her in a low voice as they mounted the stairs. ‘I think Alford fancies I just use the flat for extra storage –he’s…not wrong.’

He opened the flat –with a plain key, not the one he wore around his neck. It was no less unremarkable than the rest of the building.

‘I’d actually put it in order for you to inherit, in case you chose to stay –however much I wished you wouldn’t.’ He opened the closet, a large X stood at the back of it in black duct tape. He looked at her seriously: “Cami, are you sure? There’s no going back after this.’

‘I think the point of no return was a long time ago, uncle Kieran.’

He nodded and pulled the panel out. It opened onto a hidden room crammed full of files, heirlooms, and historical artifacts, she picked up an implement which looked like a copper syringe.

‘The Needle of Sorrow. We only managed to recover one, we know of at least two more, though we do not know whose possession they happen to be in.’

Cami looked around in fascination, her eyes coming to rest of a box of files labelled with her name:

‘You weren’t going to leave me in the dark,’ she whispered. She felt like a huge weight had lifted off her shoulder.

‘I wished for you to be free of this, I would never have left you without the means to help yourself if you chose otherwise. I could not.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered. It was like she could breathe again. His eyes softened and he looked relieved. Perhaps he had wanted someone to share this burden with even as he refused to put her in the same danger he believed he had put Sean in.

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

He swallowed eyes bright and turned to a shelf:

‘If a spell affected me, we should be able to figure out what it is with what over here.’

 

 

_I'm slipping into the deep end_  
I'm in over my head  
I can't catch my breath  
I'm slipping into the deep end  
Feel the current within  
I can't help, I give in  
I'm lost in the deep end  
I'm lost in the deep end  
I'm lost in the deep end  
I'm lost in the deep end

 

 

Keelin let out a brief, piercing shriek when the bird fell at her feet. Dead.

‘What the fuck,’ she gasped out loud, ‘What the actual –Why are you doing this?’ She asked desperately. The night seemed to swallow her words so they were but a murmur. Both the gate and the door at the end of the lane opened with a soft click. For a second she thought of turning on her heels and getting the hell out of there, but the thought of the bird coming back to life and following her kept her rooted in place. After a few seconds she reluctantly made her way inside. Everything was quiet and empty. She heard a door open somewhere upstairs and walked towards the stairs –and tripped on a book, nearly falling down. She glanced at it, expecting to see a book on birds, but it was a collection of fairytales.

She was irresistibly reminded of one of those roleplaying video games as she picked it up and went up the stairs. She opened door was on the very last floor and the room was dark and still and empty, except…There was a girl there. A girl in a glass coff- she looked down at the book. 

'I don't suppose there's any use asking if you're fucking kidding me?'

The coffin clicked open.

'Okay...'

She pushed it open further and looked down at the girl. She looked like she'd dressed for a funeral sometime in the last century, and she...Keelin swallowed. She was beautiful. Fairy tale beautiful.

'I don't know what you're hoping to accomplish,' she said, to whomever it may concern. 'Okay, just one kiss and I go back to my life, right?'

There was no quote to answer her. The black lace was beautiful against the creamy throat. She shook her head, telling herself to stop that right here.

'Just one kiss,' she repeated.

Leaning towards the girl wasn't graceful or in any way Disney-ish. In fact it made Keelin suspect Disney was full of crap, something she's already had a little bit of a sense of when she’d gotten turned into a monster by an accident where the other driver was drunk. It twisted her back all weird and her muscles had to work to hold up the position like she was at the gym.

Keelin took a deep breath and kissed the girl. Her lips were cold and tasted like icing and dust, and something burning. It felt anticlimactic for a second. Then the girl kissed her back and the window blew open replacing the smell of stale air and fairytale sugar with the intoxicating scent of night blooming jasmine, and, okay, so maybe Disney was onto something.

After a while, they had to break out for air. The girl's eyes were blue as a summer sky and when she smiled, dimpled fluttered in her cheeks.

'We should get out of here,' she said.

'Okay,' said Keelin, who, at this point, had figured out this wasn't the 'accept it and move on' sort of magic. More like the 'consume you whole' and was hoping she'd start to care and remember about self-preservation at some point. Maybe not just now. The girl's hand in hers felt so warm. They ran out, every door slamming closed behind them. When the gate clicked shut they stopped running. And the girl turned to her. The moonlight gave her blond hair the shine of true gold.

'Keelin, right?' she asked. 'Keelin Malraux?'

'Yeah.'

'I'm Freya,' she said, then she kissed Keelin again, right there, under the jasmine.

Happily. Ever. After. 

 

 

‘The Svefnthorn. Norse magic.’

‘Viking, you mean.’

Father Kieran sighed:

‘As much as I wish for you to be weary of Kol Mikaelson –of any Mikaelson, I doubt this was him. The Sleep Thorn is a dark object. Anyone can use it, and it isn’t difficult to create, either. Anyone could make another. We have had a copy of the spell since the 90’s, it was heavily used by the witches of the German Coast coven, especially some of the New Generation who are into the new magico-religions rather than Brauche or Hexerei –Asatru, especially. It’s based specifically on old Norse religion. Ironically there isn’t a single record of your…’ he wrinkled his nose, ‘…friend…using or even speaking of Norse magic with the witches he befriended. He seems to have largely preferred North African Kemiya and, bar that, Creole Magic. There are some records of Middle Eastern or European magic, but nothing higher than Copenhagen.’

Cami tried not to laugh at the expression on his face:

‘How much did it hurt you to say that?’

‘I may just bleed out internally,’ he deadpanned. ‘To be honest, I’m more worried about someone else having done this than I would be if Kol had. He’s created about a third of these dark objects, if he wanted something back, we would at least know where we stand, but as it is…I mean, I half expected to see the place ransacked or plundered to the last.’  

‘If they’re that careful here and then leave the key on your bedside table…’

‘…someone was issuing a warning. But they’re not careless; they didn’t want us to know what they took.’

“Us,” thought Cami, trying not to grin.

Her uncle was not smiling.

‘Threatening and careful, the worst kind.’

‘How do we know what they took?’

He sighed:

‘We’ll have to comb through it all.’

Cami looked around her, suddenly less awed and more overwhelmed.

 

‘I think my head might explode,’ she groused, a few hours and twenty seven record sheets later, as she looked for a dark object that looked like ‘a large pin attached to a thin brown base’. Her eyes widened:

‘Uncle!’

‘You found it?’

She lifted the smashed pieces of the object from the shelf.

‘What’s left of it.’

‘Why would anyone want to destroy it after all this time?’

Cami lifted it up:

‘I don’t think they did. Look at the traces of oxidation inside the hollow base. I think something was built _in_. Something important enough to steal. But why not steal the whole thing? I mean, it doesn’t say anywhere here that there was something inside, it would have been an ideal misdirection.’

‘Perhaps they’re less clever than they think they are,’ said her uncle, sounding unconvinced by his own theory.

‘They might over estimate how much we know?’

‘Or we’re wrong to assume they care about whether we figure them out or not. They could have left the key on the side table because they could care less whether we knew or not.’

‘This inside looks round, like it held a medal, or a medallion.’

He took it, examining the green residue:

‘We might be able to reconstitute something from this.’ He sighed: ‘…Which means we need to bring more of the human faction in on this.’

He pulled out his cellphone and composed a number, looking grim:

‘Yes, hello. I need to speak to New Orleans’ PD Captain Serpari. Yes, I’ll hold.’

 

 

 


End file.
